Egypt’s Foreign Ministry welcomed a new Irish law banning imports of goods made in Israeli settlements on Sunday, calling it a step toward international law less than a week after Ireland’s president signed it. Cairo urged the European Union and the rest of the international community to pass similar bans of their own.
The law Egypt is celebrating touches a sliver of Ireland’s trade with Israel. Settlement goods made up roughly €214,000 of the €3.83 billion (about $4.15 billion) in goods Ireland imported from Israel in 2024, and the new statute does not touch services at all.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry Calls the Ban a Step Toward International Law
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said Ireland had been completing the constitutional and legislative steps needed to turn the bill into law, and it described the move as an important step reflecting respect for international law and relevant international resolutions. The ministry said the legislation showed Ireland’s rejection of settlement activity it considers illegal, activity it said violates Palestinian rights and undermines prospects for a just and lasting peace.
Cairo renewed a call it has made repeatedly this year: that EU member states and the wider international community adopt similar legal and practical measures. The ministry framed the request around three specific asks.
- Adopt legal and practical measures similar to Ireland’s against settlement goods
- Avoid direct or indirect support for maintaining Israeli settlements
- Back the legitimate and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people
The ministry’s statement did not name a spokesperson. It closed with a broader message Egypt has repeated at nearly every opportunity since the war in Gaza began: support for Palestinian rights that goes beyond any single piece of legislation.
What Ireland’s Occupied Territories Bill Bans
The law’s formal name is the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2026, and it works by postcode. Goods originating from postal codes that the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade designates as falling inside an Israeli settlement become illegal to import. The minister can add or remove codes from that list by order, without a fresh vote in parliament every time.
The bill ccleared the Dáil, the lower house of Ireland’s parliament, in its final stage on 7 July 2026, then the Seanad, the upper house, on 15 July. President Catherine Connolly signed the bill’s final Dáil stage into law on 23 July, just three days before Egypt’s statement. IrishCentral described Ireland as the first EU country to move against trade with the occupied territories, though Belgium’s own settlement ban, which moved through an administrative order rather than a standalone act of parliament, was approved five days before Connolly put her signature on Ireland’s version.
- 2018: Independent senator Frances Black introduces the first version of a bill to restrict settlement trade, opening years of stalled progress in the Oireachtas.
- July 2024: The International Court of Justice issues an advisory opinion finding Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful, reviving pressure on Dublin to act.
- 7 July 2026: The Dáil passes the goods-only version of the bill in its final stage.
- 15 July 2026: The Seanad approves the bill after defeating amendments that would have added services to its scope.
- 18 July 2026: Belgium approves its own ban on goods from Israeli settlements.
- 23 July 2026: President Catherine Connolly signs Ireland’s bill into law.
- 26 July 2026: Egypt’s Foreign Ministry publicly welcomes the new law and calls on the EU to follow.
A Trade Worth Billions, a Ban Worth a Rounding Error
Set against Ireland’s actual trade with Israel, the new ban is narrow by design. Ireland’s Central Statistics Office provisionally estimated goods imports from Israel at €3.83 billion in 2024. Officials have said only about €214,000 of that, mostly fruit and vegetables, actually originated in settlements, a figure that works out to well under one hundredth of one percent of the total.
- €3.83 billion – Ireland’s provisional 2024 goods imports from Israel, according to the Central Statistics Office
- More than 95% – the share of that trade made up of electrical machinery and integrated circuits, not settlement produce
- €214,000 – the value of settlement-origin goods, mostly fruit and vegetables, that entered Ireland in 2024
- Second – Ireland’s rank as an export market for Israeli goods worldwide, behind only the United States
Integrated circuits alone accounted for roughly €3.61 billion of that trade, a pattern Ireland’s bilateral trade data shows has held for years. Irish import records show that dominance has made Ireland Israel’s second biggest export market for goods worldwide and its largest in Europe, a ranking the new law does not disturb. Regulators elsewhere in Europe have started treating settlement ties as a business risk companies now have to price in, even where the trade volumes involved are small.
Why Did Lawmakers Leave Services Off the List?
Ireland’s government left services out of the ban because extending it further raised legal and diplomatic complications ministers were not ready to take on, even as they acknowledged the narrower version falls short of what international law arguably requires. Two opposition amendments in the Seanad sought to add services to the bill’s scope in July 2026. Both were defeated.
During debate, the government conceded that full compliance with the ICJ’s July 2024 advisory opinion would require a law covering both goods and services, not goods alone. Ireland hosts significant multinational operations with ties to Israeli firms, and a services ban would have reached far deeper into that relationship than anything the goods-only bill touches. Lawmakers chose the narrower path anyway, leaving the broader compliance gap for a future government to close.
Dublin Already Paid a Diplomatic Price
Ireland’s relationship with Israel was already at its lowest point in decades before this bill became law. In December 2024, Israel announced it would shut its embassy in Dublin, citing Ireland’s recognition of a Palestinian state and its intervention supporting South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Ireland has crossed every red line in its relations with Israel.
Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, said that in December 2024 when he announced the embassy closure, accusing Dublin of antisemitic rhetoric and double standards. Simon Harris, then Ireland’s Taoiseach, rejected the characterization directly: “I utterly reject the assertion that Ireland is anti-Israel. Ireland is pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-international law,” he wrote on social media at the time.
Israel’s government had not issued a fresh statement responding specifically to the bill’s signing as of Sunday. Given the embassy is already closed, Dublin has little diplomatic machinery left with Israel for this particular law to strain further.
Ireland Joins a Patchwork Brussels Hasn’t Approved
The Netherlands is set to become the fifth EU member state to act unilaterally on Israeli settlement trade, following Belgium, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia, none of which waited for the European Commission to move first. Brussels has faced sustained pressure from several governments to enact a bloc-wide ban and has so far declined.
| Country | Action | Status as of late July 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Ireland | Bans import of settlement-origin goods; services excluded | Signed into law 23 July 2026 |
| Belgium | Bans goods originating in Israeli settlements | Approved 18 July 2026 |
| Netherlands | Ban on Israeli settlement imports | Compliance deadline set for 22 September 2026 |
| Slovenia | Banned arms trade with Israel; separate settlement-goods ban stalled | Current government has not advanced the import ban pursued by its predecessor |
Egypt used almost identical language nine days earlier when it welcomed Belgium’s own settlement import ban, tying that measure directly to the ICJ’s findings on the occupation’s legality. Brussels’ struggles go beyond trade policy: EU foreign ministers could not even agree earlier this year on sanctions against a single Israeli cabinet minister, a sign of how far bloc-wide consensus remains from the five-country patchwork now forming underneath it.
Cairo’s Position on Palestine Has Not Moved
Egypt closed its statement the way it has closed similar statements for years. Real security and stability in the Middle East, the ministry said, requires ending the Israeli occupation entirely and establishing an independent Palestinian state along the lines that existed before 4 June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
That position has not shifted regardless of which European capital passes which law. Ireland’s bill gives Cairo one more government to point to when it makes the argument. It does not change the argument itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
What counts as a settlement good under Ireland’s new law?
The law targets goods that originate in postal codes the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade designates as lying inside Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, not goods from Israel generally. The minister sets and can revise that postal code list by order, giving the government flexibility to adjust scope without new legislation.
Does the ban cover Israeli services or tech companies operating in Ireland?
No. Opposition amendments to extend the law to services were defeated in the Seanad in July 2026, and the government has acknowledged that full compliance with the 2024 ICJ opinion would require covering services too. As written, the law reaches only physical goods crossing the border.
Is Ireland really the first EU country to ban these imports?
It depends on how the question is framed. Ireland’s bill has the longest paper trail of any such effort in the EU, dating to 2018, but Belgium’s administrative ban actually took effect first, five days before Connolly signed Ireland’s law. Spain has also moved to restrict settlement imports, though with less public detail on its exact mechanism, making five EU states now acting without a bloc-wide agreement from Brussels.
Why did the bill take eight years to become law?
Successive Irish governments held off for years partly over concerns that a settlement-goods ban might conflict with EU trade law, since trade policy is largely an EU competence. Momentum only built after the ICJ’s July 2024 opinion and the war in Gaza pushed the issue back onto the Oireachtas agenda, and even then, the version that passed dropped services from its scope.
How much of Ireland’s trade with Israel will the ban actually stop?
Based on 2024 figures, well under one hundredth of one percent by value, since settlement goods accounted for roughly €214,000 of the €3.83 billion Ireland imported from Israel that year. The vast majority of that trade, dominated by integrated circuits and electrical machinery, falls outside the settlements and remains untouched.
