International human rights law experts have rejected claims that Ireland will be obliged to take in people who are displaced from Gaza because of its support for Palestinian statehood.
Earlier this week, US president Donald Trump proposed that 1.8 million people living in Gaza could move elsewhere as the territory was taken over by the United States and redeveloped.
On Thursday, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz maintained that displaced residents of Gaza could be resettled in Ireland.
“Countries like Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have levelled accusations and false claims against Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow any Gaza resident to enter their territories,” Mr Katz wrote on social media channel X.
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Assistant professor of Law at the Trinity Centre for Post-Conflict Justice at Trinity College Dublin Mike Becker described the comments by Mr Katz as “grandstanding”.
Prof Becker said Ireland has “obligations under international protection law and under domestic laws and policies about who and in what circumstances it will accept people coming from overseas. There is no specific obligation that arises from the fact that Ireland has protested at Israel’s conduct in Gaza.”
He said “even so-called voluntary relocation by Palestinians did not necessarily absolve Israeli officials of potential criminal liability or make this lawful”.
“Whether forced relocation is lawful can turn on whether people have a genuine choice in the matter. This is an important reason why it would be problematic for Ireland or other states to enter into agreements with Israel to receive people from Palestine. Doing so is likely to contribute to a situation of unlawful forced transfer and could also pave the way to the unlawful annexation of Gaza by Israel.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs has assisted Irish citizens to leave Gaza and the Department of Justice maintained it has provided support to their families who needed visas.
In October the then minister for justice Helen McEntee detailed that since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7th, 2023, her department had issued 179 long stay visas to Palestinian nationals permitting them to come to live in Ireland. “Of these, 112 were Join Family visas. The vast majority of these applications were to join spouses, children and parents living in Ireland.”
However, Ms McEntee said that not all of these applicants may have been resident in Gaza or the West Bank.
There has been a surge in the number of Palestinians applying for asylum in Ireland.
The Irish Times reported on Thursday that official Department of Justice figures showed that 957 Palestinians applied for international protection between January and December 2024, up from 118 applications the previous year.
Last May, Ms McEntee ruled out a fast track system for allowing people from Gaza to live in Ireland along the lines of the Temporary Protection Directive that is in place for people fleeing the conflict in Ukraine, which had been suggested by Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh.
“Insofar as the Temporary Protection Directive is concerned, this directive is applicable to what is defined as a ‘mass influx’ into the EU of displaced people from third countries who are unable to return to their country of origin, circumstances which do not apply at this time in this instance,” she said “Activation of the protection directive requires a proposal from the EU Commission and a majority decision by the Council of the EU.”
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