Subject: Call from [Your Constituency]: Enact the Occupied Territories Bill – ban trade in goods AND services 

Dear Deputy, 

I am writing to you as a constituent of [Name of Constituency] to ask you to ensure the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2025 is implemented in full and as soon as possible – banning trade in both goods AND services. 

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade has made it clear that the Bill must be strengthened to include services in order to align with the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion and international law. 

Last September, 80 civil society organisations including Trócaire, The Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and Christian Aid published a report ‘How Foreign States and Corporations Enable Israel’s Illegal Settlement Enterprise’. The report exposes how trade with illegal Israeli settlements sustains Israel’s settlement enterprise and prolonged occupation, enabling its expansion and the associated human rights violations. Crucially it calls on states- including Ireland – to ban trade with illegal settlements. 

Irish and British human rights monitor from the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI UK & Ireland) accompany Palestinian communities and document the daily impacts of the occupation. They recently accompanied Muhammed, a Palestinian farmer in the Jordan Valley. He shared how Israeli settlers had established an illegal outpost on his land, blocking him from accessing his own fields, cutting his water pipes, burning irrigation equipment, and tearing down his fencing. This pattern of harassment and destruction reflects a wider coercive environment across the occupied West Bank aimed at forcing Palestinians off their land. A recent UN Human Rights Office report found that more than 36,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced across the West Bank amid increasing violence by Israeli security forces and Israeli settlers.  

When asked why he did not seek legal recourse, he explained: “I have four small children. When they get sick, I need to be able to take them to the hospital. If I complain to the court, I will be blacklisted and prevented from passing through the checkpoint.” 

At the end of March this year, the Irish government said it was “appalled” by what it called increasing “settler terror” and “violence by the Israeli security forces [and] settler militias”. But despite this, it continues to allow trade which enables the settlement enterprise to thrive, turning Israel’s occupation of Palestine into a permanent annexation.  

Ireland must end its complicity in sustaining Israel’s illegal occupation and these human rights violations. 

I urge you, as your constituent, to take every possible measure to ensure the Bill is enacted and to take these concrete steps to align Ireland with its international legal obligations: 

1. Enact the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2025 banning trade with both goods and services from illegal settlements. 

2. Provide political and financial support to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to update and publish the UN database of business enterprises involved in certain activities relating to Israeli settlements in the OPT. Urge that the scope of the UN Database is broadened to include companies involved in and enabling the occupation. 

3. Call for the immediate suspension of the EU‑Israel Association Agreement until full compliance by Israel with the human rights provision in the Agreement, and the ICJ Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024. 

I look forward to your response and hearing what actions you will take.

I would be grateful if you can raise these concerns with the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Thank you for your support, 

Yours sincerely, 

[Your name]

[Your home address]