The bombardment and total siege of Gaza in recent weeks has seen the death toll exceed 6,500 people. More than 17,000 are injured and the Palestinian ministry of health has officially declared the collapse of the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip. The people of Gaza face a humanitarian catastrophe. The call of the Taoiseach at today’s European Council meeting must be for an immediate and full ceasefire, for the universal application of, and adherence to, international law with the explicit condemnation of those who breach it regardless of who they are, including Israel. If European leaders refuse to grasp this opportunity, however, then it falls to the Government to show desperately needed international leadership. What actions will the Government take and bring to bear to alleviate the human catastrophe and ensure adherence to international humanitarian law?

The Government has been very clear, and I have been very clear, that adherence to international law is a prerequisite and an essential need and imperative. We have also increased our funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, in particular. I met other member states during the week, on Monday, bilaterally, specifically asking for additional aid for UNRWA. I spoke to the Israeli foreign minister on Monday and made it clear that we want a humanitarian pause. At the subsequent Foreign Affairs Council, FAC, meeting, significant and growing numbers of member states coming around to the view that we need a humanitarian pause. I hope that, this week, the Council will follow through on that. That is the real work. We can make all the statements we like but we have to persuade people to go in a definitive direction, and that is what we are doing at European level. It is to get people to call for a humanitarian pause to enable aid to get in. When I spoke to the Israeli foreign minister, I said we need to get fuel into Gaza. If you do not have fuel, you do not have water.

Thank you, Tánaiste.

What is happening is unacceptable. Without question, the human suffering is unacceptable. Too many women, too many children are dying. We have asked for that humanitarian pause in the first instance to enable us to get fuel in there because fuel will fuel the desalination plants, it will get the water pumps going to get water going, and every human being is entitled to water and food.

The rise in the death toll in Gaza has been truly horrific this week. Last night, we learned again about more bombardments and bombardments of areas in the south of the Gaza Strip where civilians had been told to move and told that it was for their safety. We have seen more children killed. We saw horrific images last night of individual tragedies such as the family of the Al Jazeera journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh, who were killed, including his son, Mahmoud, who had been filmed earlier in the week appealing to western leaders to keep him, his sister and other children alive in Gaza. We are seeing such an appalling and unbearable catastrophe in Gaza. UNRWA says it will have to cease aid operations and cease hospital services if fuel does not come in. I know the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach are pushing at European level but they must push harder to ensure the calls at EU level are made robustly and clearly for a ceasefire to ensure aid can be brought in to alleviate the unbearable suffering of the people of Gaza.

We are pushing very hard for that. At the FAC meeting on Monday, I articulated very strongly the need for a humanitarian pause and for very coherent humanitarian aid, and that there be no obstacles to that or to development aid going into Gaza. For the first time in a long time, the European Commissioner of Humanitarian Affairs was at the Foreign Affairs Council and he gave a very clear, clinical presentation to all Ministers on the dire situation in Gaza. The EU has people on the ground in Gaza at the moment from the humanitarian side of the Commission. They are giving us a very clear account of the horror and the human catastrophe that is happening within Gaza itself. We are pushing very hard for a humanitarian pause to get agreement at the European Council meeting. That has been our focus all week.