Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

The Deputy is right to highlight the fact that the ceasefire at the moment is very clearly being breached in some instances but we also need to make sure our focus does not get averted from what is happening in the West Bank. I raised with colleagues last week that the number of people who have been killed in the West Bank in the last two years alone is almost as many as those who have been killed in the last 20 years. There has been an escalation of violence within the West Bank and we need to consistently call this out and do everything in our power to make sure this can be responded to adequately. The suspension of preferential tariffs via the association agreement is still on the table because Ireland and other member states have pushed for that to be the case.

We cannot allow either side or party to the peace agreement to breach that in the way they are consistently doing, so we need to make sure that there are levers still available to us to respond to these changes. Of course, from our perspective, we will continue to provide aid that is very much needed, not just in terms of humanitarian aid and the trucks that are flowing in, but also other financing that is now going to be needed to rebuild Gaza. We must make sure that we can focus on that and that it is a priority when we talk about a ceasefire and a lasting peace.

See this speech in context