There is no indication that Ireland is being penalised due to its stance on the Israel-Hamas war and calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

Mr Varadkar said there are about 40 Irish citizens in Gaza and that he did not know when those seeking to leave the region would be able to do so.

No Irish citizens have been able to leave the enclave since foreign citizens were first allowed to last week.

Speaking during Leaders’ Questions on Wednesday, the Taoiseach said there were roughly 8,000 EU and foreign nationals in Gaza.

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“Only a handful have been allowed to leave so far,” he said. “Only about 20 per cent of EU citizens have been allowed to leave so far, and we have been given no indication that Ireland is somehow being penalised for the stance we are taking in our call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire but we will not change our position on that, no matter what.”

Mr Varadkar was responding to People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy, who said that Irish citizens, together with Brazilian citizens, were “effectively being held hostage by the Israeli regime in Gaza”.

“While other countries’ citizens have been allowed to leave – the US, Germany and Britain, Irish and Brazilians have not been allowed to leave by Israel,” he said.

Mr Murphy said countries whose citizens who were allowed to leave had voted in line with Israel against a ceasefire.

The Dublin South West TD repeated his party’s call to expel the Israeli ambassador to Ireland while also asked if the Government would refer Israel to the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

Mr Varadkar said he believed that a referral was not necessary, but would seek further information.

The Taoiseach also said that he did not believe it would be the right thing to expel the ambassador for “exactly the same reasons that we did not expel the Russian ambassador in relation to Ukraine”.

“We need to be able to engage at some level,” he said. “There are around 40 Irish citizens being held in Gaza and we want them to be able to leave.

“There is also a young Irish-Israeli girl who may well be being held in Gaza as a hostage of Hamas as well. Let us not be just one sided about this. Our priority, no matter who is holding them, is for them to be able to get out and get out safety. That means we need to be able to engage with the Israeli Government and the Israeli ambassador.”

Mr Varadkar added that while expelling the ambassador might “make us feel better for a day or two, and it might be a story in the international news for a day or two”, it would not impact on Israel’s policy, “not for a second”.

“You are a bit naive if you actually think that,” he told Mr Murphy.

“It would not cause Israel to change course. Secondly, it would hamper our efforts to get the hostages out and to get citizens out and also to potentially have some sort of role in future peacebuilding and peacemaking in the area.”