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

I thank the Deputy sincerely for raising the issue and for her comments. I do not have an update on the report I received as I arrived in the Chamber of firing on UNIFIL positions. I expect to get a comprehensive report on that, which I will share with people generally.

It illustrates the high-risk and dangerous environment peacekeepers now operate within and the need for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel. That has to happen immediately. Israel is not listening, even to its allies, in terms of progressing its agenda of, it seems to me, all-out war in the region. We have seen what has happened in Gaza, where 70% of all buildings have been levelled, 40,000 people have been killed and the population is now experiencing forms of famine and lack of access to proper nutrition. Children have had no access to schools for 12 months, from the beginning of this war with the Hamas attack on 7 October, which was a heinous crime as well. It is unacceptable.

I said earlier in the House that the nature of destructive warfare today, where an entire community, from education to health, gets destroyed in the name of attacking various opponent military targets, is a clear breach of international humanitarian law. There is no doubt about that. Ireland has pursued this through the international courts. It has supported and made submissions to the international courts. The advisory opinion is important, including in the context of the occupied territories Bill. We await further advices from the Attorney General, which I expect we will get shortly, in respect of both the Bill and the impact of the ICJ.

The ICJ places obligations on states in respect of the occupation, whereby nothing can be done that would in any way aid or support the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. In my view, this creates a new context in which we must look at this. We have already tabled this at the European Union Foreign Affairs Council meeting - the informal one held recently - where Josep Borrell, the high level representative, said that he has sought legal opinion as to the implications for the European Union in respect of the ICJ advisory opinion. Ireland supported that opinion through resolutions. We co-sponsored a resolution recently to have a follow-through at UN level on the implementation of that advisory opinion.

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