Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

France, for example, will have strong interests in trying to protect Lebanon. It does not support the bombardment and has been trying, with the US, to get an agreement between Hezbollah, the Israeli military and the Israeli Government, to no avail, over the last 12 months. When the Hamas attack on Gaza happened, Hezbollah, in solidarity with Hamas, started firing rockets into Israel. A total of 90,000 people left the north of Israel. About 90,000 Lebanese people have had to leave southern Lebanon. Those cities are all deserted because of rockets going over. That is the context of it. I do not agree with any of it. I want to make the point that we should not be disagreeing on this. There has to be a ceasefire and there are two parties to that ceasefire. That needs to happen as well. The destructive nature of modern warfare is quite shocking. The mentality behind it is something that there has to be accountability for. The only place where there can be accountability at the moment is the International Criminal Court. The prosecutor, Karim Khan, has already acted. He has faced significant intimidation and pressure in the US Congress and elsewhere because of his actions. We have been supportive of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. We have participated fully because we believe in the multilateral order. It is the only guarantee we have of security and peace.

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