While a small country like Ireland cannot be expected to have a major influence on events in the Middle East, it is always important to take a principled stand in the course of a humanitarian crisis.
More than 6,000 people marched peacefully through Belfast on Saturday calling for an end to Israeli attacks on Gaza, an impressive attendance by any standards on a cold November afternoon.
It was only one of a range of huge gatherings across Ireland and the UK over the weekend, all insisting that a ceasefire should take place in the region as a matter of the utmost priority.
The Belfast rally made its way from Queen's University to the US Consulate in the south of the city, where speakers criticised the financial support provided to Israel by the American administration.
Hundreds of teddy bears were placed at the gates of the consulate in a moving gesture to represent the thousands of children who have been killed in Gaza over recent weeks.
Tensions between the Palestinians and the Israelis have been growing steadily over recent years, with well documented and entirely unacceptable breaches of human rights taking place across the board.
The sudden and terrifying escalation on October 7, when militants from the Hamas group burst over the heavily fortified border from Gaza into Israel, killing 1,400 men, women and children in brutal and evil circumstances and taking more than 240 people hostage, plunged the region into full blown conflict.
Israel has since used its massive military resources to pound Gaza from the air, impose a siege and launch a ground assault, with the death toll among the Palestinians approaching 10,000.
There is deep international concern over the plight of ordinary civilians in Gaza, where an estimated 30,000 have been wounded but one third of the hospitals have stopped functioning and the remainder are barely working due to shortages of fuel and medical supplies, as food and water also runs out.
It is obvious that both sides have perpetrated war crimes over the last month, and the priority must be achieving an immediate cessation of hostilities and the release of all hostages.
If Israel decides instead to accelerate its bombardment of Gaza, with further horrific consequences following on an appalling scale, the expulsion of its ambassador to Dublin would be an entirely reasonable step on behalf of the Irish government.
