Israel's actions in Gaza breach limits of self-defence, Attorney General tells ICJ

Attorney General Rossa Fanning raised the 'spiralling death toll' in Gaza and Israel's 'extensive destruction of property, including homes' in the Palestinian enclave since the Hamas attacks on October 7. File picture: Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie

Israel has committed "serious breaches" of international law over many decades and should face legal consequences for its actions, the Attorney General has told the UN's highest court.

AG Rossa Fanning has also raised the "spiralling death toll" in Gaza and Israel's "extensive destruction of property, including homes" in the Palestinian enclave since the Hamas attacks on October 7.

Mr Fanning was representing Ireland in a case which is looking at the legality of Israel’s conduct over many years in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. 

It is the first time the International Court of Justice has been asked to give an advisory opinion on the issue. The case is separate to a genocide case against Israel which being taken by South Africa.

But Mr Fanning told the court the backdrop to the hearing "is a matter of profound concern to the Irish Government".

"The attacks launched by Hamas against Israel on 7 October were reprehensible and we have condemned them unequivocally. The rape and murder of civilians, destruction of civilian property, taking of hostages, use of human shields and firing of indiscriminate rockets at urban centres constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law for which those involved must be held accountable."

But he said international law limited the use of force in self-defence to no more than what is necessary and proportionate.

"Ireland’s view is that these limits have been exceeded by Israel in its military response to the Hamas attack. This is manifest from the spiralling death toll, the extensive destruction of property, including homes, throughout Gaza, the displacement of two million people and the ensuing, humanitarian catastrophe. 

Ireland has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and we are dismayed by the implications that these latest hostilities in Gaza may have for the prospect of resolving the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mr Fanning said Ireland remained committed to the realisation of the two-State solution endorsed by the UN Security Council, which would mean a safe and secure Israel and an independent, democratic, contiguous, viable and sovereign Palestinian State, living side by side in peace, within secure and recognised borders based on those of 1967, with Jerusalem as the capital of both States.

Addressing the court in The Hague, Mr Fanning said: "Ireland has, with regret, concluded that by its prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory and the settlement activities it has conducted there for more than half a century, Israel has committed serious breaches of a number of peremptory norms of general international law."

Mr Fanning said a two-state solution must be progressed, adding recent statements by Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he openly rejected this, have caused "such widespread international dismay".