Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has defended a statement welcoming the release of the nine-year-old girl held captive by Hamas following a backlash from Israeli officials.
Varadkar sparked a diplomatic incident on Saturday after posting a message on X in which described Israeli-Irish citizen Emily Hand as “lost”.
“An innocent child who was lost has now been found and returned, and we breathe a massive sigh of relief,” the Irish leader wrote.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, in response, accused Varadkar of needing a “reality check” and summoned the Irish ambassador for a reprimand.
“Emily Hand was not ‘lost’, she was kidnapped by a terror organization worse than ISIS that murdered her stepmother,” Cohen said on X.
In a statement on Sunday, Varadkar said he believed “the vast majority of people understand what I was saying, recalling the amazing joy and awe that occurs when a child comes home. I’ve always been consistent in my unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and hostage taking”.
Irish Enterprise Minister Simon Coveney defended Varadkar in a television interview, saying his colleague had been using a Biblical term.
Ireland and Israel have had a difficult relationship since the start of the war in Gaza, with officials trading barbs over civilian deaths and the Irish parliament voting down a motion to expel the Israeli ambassador by a relatively narrow margin of 85 votes to 55.
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