Gaza War | Ireland is an EU Palestine activist who is now intervening in the genocide investigation

Ireland has announced that it will intervene in the ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) investigation into Israel's culpability for genocide.

The country's foreign minister and acting prime minister Michael Martin said on Wednesday that the country wants to spark a debate about the definition of genocide and whether it has been committed in Gaza.

Acts promoting genocide – or in legal language mass extermination – can be read in addition to directly harming a group of people, also the “intentional deterioration” of living conditions.

According to Martin, preventing the transportation of food and other vital supplies could also be an activity promoting genocide. According to him, the concept of genocide should be considered in relation to Gaza, because the actions taken there at the moment target the entire Palestinian population.

“Half of the population of Gaza suffers from famine and one hundred percent lacks food,” Martin comment to the British newspaper The Guardian, which reports on the matter.

According to Martin, both the current events in Gaza and the October attacks by Hamas against Israel are shameless violations of international humanitarian law.

Israel has denied that it would restrict the flow of aid supplies to Gaza.

Despite that, only a fifth of the aid needed in the region currently gets there, reports The Guardian. Attempts have been made to deliver relief supplies to Gaza by dropping them from airplanes, but for example the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is statedthat the only effective way to get help is by road.

This week, several Palestinians drownedwhen they tried to pick up aid packages that fell into the sea off Gaza.

of the ICJ in the genocide investigation it's about about the case in which South Africa has sued Israel. It demanded an immediate end to hostilities in Gaza and an investigation into whether Israel is guilty of genocide.

The court's line in the case creates jurisprudence for all states that have signed the Act on Mass Destruction, so the states that fall under it have the opportunity to intervene and offer their help in interpreting the text of the agreement.

Interventions are not common, but in the case of an investigation into Israel, it is not the first of its kind. Germany has announced of intervening in the investigation on behalf of Israel.

Gazan during the war, Ireland's top politicians have been some of the EU's harshest critics of Israel.

The Prime Minister of Ireland who resigned a couple of weeks ago Leo Varadkar is for example said Israel acts in Gaza “blinded by rage” and described its actions as reminiscent of revenge. Foreign Minister Martin again has accused Israel's careless handling of civilian lives.

However, Israel and Ireland have a long history of cool relations.

American public broadcaster NPR writethat in 1980 Ireland was the first EU country to announce statehood for Palestine, and in 1993 the last to welcome the Israeli delegation to the country.

In 2010 Foreign Policy wrotethat there is an almost complete consensus in the country that the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks is Israel's fault.

Multi believes Ireland's sympathies for Palestine stem from the country's own colonial history.

Until the war of independence, which ended in 1921, Ireland was ruled by Britain. The Guardian write of the narrative that the Irish fought the British occupiers just as the Palestinians are now fighting their own occupiers.

Their interviewed a former diplomat Niall Holohan signs an analysis of the influence of history on today's Palestinian sympathies.

“We feel that over the centuries we have ended up in the position of a victim. It belongs to our soul landscape – in the end we are on the side of the underdog”, describes Holohan, who worked in Ramallah on the West Bank.

In December Varadkar, then Prime Minister of Ireland said that the government supports the recognition of Palestine, but that Ireland wants to do it as part of a coalition of other EU countries

Last week Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and Malta announced that they are ready to recognize a Palestinian state. According to the countries, this is the only way to achieve peace in the region.

Sweden is the only country that has recognized the Palestinian state during its EU membership.

However, several countries have recognized Palestine's right to its own state. For example, Bulgaria, Malta and Cyprus made that recognition before joining the European Union.

Correction 28.3. 4:53 p.m.: Removed from the article the mention that the recognition of Palestine's right to its own state was made by the Czech Republic. It was about Czechoslovakia.

Correction 28.3. 4:45 p.m.: Removed a section that falsely claimed that Bulgaria and the Czech Republic were part of the Soviet Union.