Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The position of the European Union is the one agreed in the statement by the European Council. That was agreed on Sunday after many conversations over the weekend. I hope we will be in a position to build on that position today at the extraordinary Council of the European Union. Each EU member state has its own foreign policy. We only have a common foreign policy when we agree to have one and when we can agree joint statements.

While President von der Leyen has done an extremely good job as President of the European Commission on issues such as climate, Covid and Ukraine, some of the statements she made lacked balance. I said that to her and have no difficulty saying it. The statements she has made more recently were more balanced, specifically those relating to the tripling of EU humanitarian aid for Gaza and the attempts we are making at present to organise a UN humanitarian air bridge from Gaza through Egypt.

We will be calling for a de-escalation. We do not want to see this conflict spread to other parts of the Middle East. I am conscious that we have troops in Lebanon and Syria and I am concerned for their safety. Nobody wants to see this spread to Lebanon, the West Bank or other parts of Middle East. There are actors who want that to happen, perhaps including Hamas and some states in the region. We should not forget that.

We will stand over Israel's right to defend itself. I hope we all agree in this House that Israel as a state has a right to defend itself and to pursue terrorists who attack it, but we will be very clear that it is our view as a country that this must be done in accordance with international law. The fact that Hamas hides among the population, uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, and is now using Israeli hostages as human shields is not acceptable. We need to call that out too. However, those civilians are not to blame for the fact that Hamas uses them as human shields and should not be punished collectively as a result.

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