Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Michael Martin ruled on Sunday that Israel “must be held accountable” for civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip war, where the death toll has exceeded 25,000, with the vast majority of victims they are women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in the Palestinian enclave.

“Israel must be held accountable for what it is doing,” Mr Martin told Irish public broadcaster RTÉ. “I condemn the continued bombing of Gaza. He is shocking. He’s horrible. It cannot be justified at all.”

At the same time, the head of Irish diplomacy defended Dublin’s cautious attitude towards South Africa’s appeal to the International Court of Justice (IC) of the United Nations in The Hague, with which it accused Israel of genocide.

The war is “already under investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes, which may include genocide,” Mr Martin explained. He noted that Ireland had made additional funding of three million euros available to the ICC to facilitate its investigation.

Ireland will soon consider whether to join South Africa’s appeal after it passes the preliminary stage, he said: “no one can join at this time, not even Palestine.”

He reminded that South Africa filed an appeal, Israel responded and there remains a preliminary judgment of the ICJ.

He also noted that South Africa is otherwise “asking for exactly what we are seeking: an immediate end to hostilities and unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza.”

He added that Ireland would act in the same way as in Ukraine’s appeal to the IC, in which it accused Russia of genocide. The Foreign Secretary said he and his services had been studying the case for 12 weeks before deciding whether Ireland would join the appeal. “We will study the case very seriously,” he assured, referring to South Africa’s appeal.

But as the issue is legal it may “take years to resolve (…) in the meantime, we must remain focused on securing a ceasefire”.

It will consider what can be done at EU level to “put stronger pressure on Israel to stop” this week, it added.

The statements of the head of Irish diplomacy on South Africa’s appeal to the ICC differ markedly from the position expressed by Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar in response to its submission. He said that Dublin had no intention of participating and that there was a need to “be very careful” when determining whether genocide was being committed. Adding that “I would feel uncomfortable accusing Israel (…) of genocide, given that six million Jews, more than half of Europe’s population, were slaughtered” in the Holocaust. “I think we have to be a little careful when we use words like that unless we’re absolutely convinced they’re the right ones,” he explained.