Pro-Palestinian protesters near the Irish Parliament in Dublin at a rally against Israeli air strikes in Gaza in 2009. Photo: William Murphy / Flickr.

Several members of the lower house of the Irish Parliament have submitted a motion to expel Ophir Kariv, the Israeli ambassador to Ireland, that is expected to be brought to a vote this week.

According to the motion — led mainly by the socialist party, People Before Profit — the Israeli ambassador’s presence in Ireland is “untenable” as it alleges that “Israel’s military actions in Gaza and similar murderous attacks over recent years and the siege of Gaza amount to war crimes.”

The motion calls on the government to expel the Israeli ambassador to Ireland in response to the “violence against Palestinians.” Overall, it has been signed by only 11 Irish legislators out of 160 members of the lower house of the Parliament.

In response, Foreign Minister of Ireland Simon Coveney said that “expelling the Israeli ambassador won’t save a single Palestinian child or Israeli.”

“The idea that you advance the argument that you’re making in refusing to talk to a government or ambassador is flawed,” Coveney added.

“The expulsion of an ambassador is within the competence of the government only, not the Dáil [lower house of parliament],” Maurice Cohen, chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland told The Algemeiner. “Both [Ireland’s Prime Minister] Michaél Martin and the Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, in answer to questions last week in the Dáil, stated that it would serve no use whatsoever to expel the Ambassador. I do not believe that they will change their minds.”

The motion was initiated before Israel and Hamas agreed to a bilateral ceasefire, which came into effect on Friday. During the hostilities, Hamas fired 4,340 rockets were fired by from the Gaza Strip toward Israel, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) striking a total of 1,600 of the militant group’s targets.

The motion also accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing, and illegal settlement expansion, and claims that over 60 Palestinian children have been killed by the IDF during the recent conflict.

“Gaza continues to be strangled, denying Palestinian people the basic necessities, demolishing homes, eroding Palestinian lands, with racist laws, torture, restriction of movement, and the continued shooting and murder of Palestinian lives,” People Before Profit Councillor Maeve O’Neill said at the Palestinian Lives Matter rally in Derry on Saturday. “It’s time for us to set an example once more. The BDS movement in Ireland have called for sanctions and to cut all trade relations with Israel, to pass the Occupied Territories Bill, to use our seat on the UN Security Council to push for global sanctions against Israel and for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador.”

“Fianna Fáil and Micháel Martin have refused to expel the Israeli Ambassador. This is a betrayal to the BDS movement and the Palestinian struggle,” O’Neill said.