Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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174. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the additional measures he is proposing to the EU to impose sanctions on Israel given the ongoing and worsening attacks in the West Bank and Gaza following the breach of ceasefire by Israel; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15532/25]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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178. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the additional sanctions against Israel is he proposing given that Israel broke ceasefire with Hamas and killed of over 800 civilians; if he is planning to cut trade ties with Israel; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15534/25]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 174 and 178 together.

The urgent need to address the conflict in the Middle East remains a priority for Ireland.

The immediate focus of the international community must be on bringing hostilities to an immediate end and for all parties to return to talks aimed at implementing the second phase of the ceasefire and hostage release deal. Our focus must also be on the immediate resumption of humanitarian aid into Gaza at scale, and the release of the remaining hostages. I condemn the resumption of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza and the new ground offensive, which have brought fresh suffering to the people of Gaza and have breached the ceasefire.

I am also extremely concerned about the situation in the West Bank, where Israel is conducting the single longest operation in 20 years. Over 40,000 people have been displaced as a result. The latest report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Israeli settlements also sets out a stark and evidence-based assessment of the exponential increase in settlement expansion, settler violence and impunity. These actions risk undermining the viability of the two State solution.

It is vital that the perpetrators of settler violence are held to account. I welcome that, at the meeting of the EU-Israel Association Council in February, the European Union strongly condemned the ongoing extremist settler violence in the West Bank and indicated that it will take forward work on further restrictive measures against extremist settlers and against entities and organisations that support them, in addition to those already listed under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime.

As this House is aware, Ireland implements UN and EU sanctions. Sanctions are an important tool to promote the objectives of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) in response to breaches of international law including international humanitarian law and human rights. EU sanctions are always targeted, and seek to bring about a change in the policy or behaviour of the target of the measures.