McEntee pressed on whether US and Israel broke international law

By Bairbre Holmes, Press Association

The Minister for Foreign Affairs has repeatedly refused to say if she believes Israeli and American air strikes on Iran broke international law.

Speaking to the media in Dublin on Thursday afternoon, Helen McEntee was asked several times if actions by the two countries were outside international law.

She referred repeatedly to the lack of a mandate from the UN, saying in order for conflicts to be “justified” there “needs to be a UN mandate from the UN Security Council”.

On Saturday, the US and Israel targeted Iran’s leadership, missile arsenal and nuclear programme in a series of air strikes.

Iran retaliated with thousands of drones and ballistic missiles targeting Israel, UK, and American military bases and embassies in the region, and energy facilities across the Persian Gulf.

The war has killed more than 1,230 people in Iran, more than 100 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel, according to officials in those countries.

It has disrupted the supply of the world’s oil and gas, snarled international shipping and stranded hundreds of thousands of travellers in the Middle East.

Asked why she was stopping short of explicitly saying the Irish Government believes Israel and the US broke international law McEntee said much of the “extremely difficult situation in the Middle East” was “caused by Iran”.

She said: “I think we’re all grappling with the fact that Iran has not only subdued and massacred its own citizens and population in recent decades and more recently, in recent weeks, but it has essentially contributed to state-sponsored terrorism for many in the region.”

She added: “So much of the instability and conflict that has been caused in the region has been at the hands of Iran.

“So we all want to see an improvement and a change, and we want the people of Iran to be able to essentially set out their own destiny.”