Paul Murphy returning to Ireland after being held in Egypt
He was among a group of participants in the march from Ireland who will fly back to Dublin.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Murphy said that no other Irish citizens are currently detained in Egypt.
He said some are remaining in Egypt and said he is "conscious of their safety and not putting them in any jeopardy."
Mr Murphy said it was not initially clear to him that he was being detained.
"For the first three hours or so, it was just a slow, bureaucratic process. Things were taking a long time. I asked to leave and was told I couldn't. The whole time they had my passport, and it became clear that I was being detained, as unfortunately hundreds of have been in Egypt, and many people deported.
"Yesterday, in total, I was in the police station for nine hours," he added.
The TD for Dublin South West said that there would be no renewed attempt for the group to continue their march to Rafah, and that they were disappointed that they had not succeeded.
Have now been released, thanks again for all the support. Others from #GlobalMarchToGaza still detained.
Will comment further when I've left Egypt.
Free Palestine 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/ZWlmooSQuG
— Paul Murphy 🇵🇸 (@paulmurphy_TD) June 16, 2025
"Obviously, we are disappointed that we didn't get to Rafah. But, we have had probably the largest international people-powered coalition for Palestine in a very long time.
"This phase of the Global March to Gaza is over, there won't be a renewed attempt to get to Rafah. But then our focus turns to events, like in Brussels next week, where the European foreign ministers are scandalously going to be meeting with the Israeli foreign minister at a time when Israel has 20 months of genocide in Gaza, as well as starting a war with Iran," he said.
Hundreds of people came to Egypt for the Global March to Gaza, an international initiative intended to exert pressure for an end to an Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory and draw attention to the humanitarian crisis there.
Mr Murphy said that pressure needed to be put on western governments to get Israel "to stop what they are doing".
"Many western governments, and many of the people who were there, are coming from countries where their governments are effectively arming and funding Israel. You now have Ursula von der Leyen saying Israel has a right to defend itself at this moment, when they're not just responsible for regional instability but genocide.
"But also, our own Government ... We need to go beyond words, and we need to match those words with action, which means the full implementation of the Occupied Territories Bill, it means stopping weapons flying through our skies, and it means stopping our Central Bank authorising the sale of Israeli war bonds across Europe.
"Relatively speaking, our position is privileged. Therefore, it's still incumbent on all of us to do whatever we can. Unless you close your eyes, you can't not be aware that there is a genocide happening in Gaza," he added.
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In school, most of us learned about The Hague the way one learns about algebra or Shakespeare — with begrudging reverence. A solemn Dutch city, home to two of the most formidable-sounding institutions ever cooked up by the sober minds of the post-Second World War West — the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). One for disputes between states. The other for the monsters among us — war criminals, genocidaires, and heads of state with more skeletons than mistresses. But lately, those halls of justice have grown quiet. The problem isn't just that people have stopped listening to the verdicts. It's as if they've stopped pretending to care at all. If all the courts can do is issue warrants nobody will enforce, then what is the point? Last year, the ICC's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, requested arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant. 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In essence, the reactions in 2021were just an appetiser for those that followed the May 2024 decision that 'there were reasonable grounds' to believe Netanyahu, Gallant, and several Hamas officials had committed international crimes since October 7. On that basis, the court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas commander Mohammed Deif (later withdrawn after reports of his death). Israel, if it were so inclined to take heed, had been warned by the ICC in 2021. It ploughed on regardless. Today, in August 2025, Netanyahu isn't in a holding cell. Neither is Vladimir Putin, who had his own ICC warrant slapped on his name last year. Sudan's Omar al-Bashir evaded capture for over a decade despite indictments and a passport that read like a serial offender's travel diary. The ICC shouts into the void, and the void responds with billions of dollars of military aid and state dinners. So what went wrong? Or perhaps more honestly, was it ever really right? The roots of these courts are noble, born from the most ignoble chapters of human history. After the unthinkable horrors of the Holocaust, the international community collectively said 'never again'. The Nuremberg Trials in 1945 introduced the novel idea that even heads of state could be held accountable. The precedent gave rise to the ICJ in 1945, the UN's 'principal judicial organ', meant to settle disputes between countries. Think of it as marriage counselling for nations with nuclear weapons. Then, in 2002, came the ICC — a separate body entirely. Born of the Rome Statute, it was designed to prosecute individuals for four core crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the elusive crime of aggression, which sounds like something out of a philosophy exam paper. The ICC was supposed to be the last line of defence for victims when national courts were unwilling or unable to act. A legal lighthouse amid stormy seas. But there were always caveats. Big ones. The US, China, and Russia never ratified the Rome Statute. Israel signed it but later 'unsigned' it — an act that should be impossible, but like many things in geopolitics, defies logic. Without these major players on board, the ICC became a court with jurisdiction over everyone except the people most likely to ignore it. So, how is the ICC doing two decades on? It has handed down just five convictions for core crimes. Most of those were against African warlords. Critics have long accused the court of selective justice, a phrase that sounds like something from a dystopian menu: 'Would you like your international law with or without hypocrisy?' Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian attack in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine. Picture: Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP Meanwhile, the ICJ, for its part, has presided over more than 180 disputes, many of them relating to maritime boundaries. It has done admirable work in the dry, academic realm of state-to-state conflict resolution. But unlike the ICC, the ICJ can't issue arrest warrants or hold individuals responsible. It depends on voluntary compliance. That's a bit like having a referee at a boxing match who can only politely ask you to stop punching. Despite their apparent impotence, there is an argument that if neither court existed, you'd invent them both tomorrow. 'Both the ICJ and ICC have major political impact, that perhaps supersedes any ability it lacks to follow through on arrest warrants,' argues Maryam Jamshidi, an associate professor of law at the University of Colorado Law School. 'The legal arguments the ICJ and ICC are making remain the most effective way to shut down any discussion that what Israel is doing is anything other than war crimes.' There is huge symbolism, too, in those who are bringing the cases to the courts, and those who are rejecting them. 'The construct of contemporary international law is, in and of itself, very much a product of the West and Western interests. But over time, especially since decolonisation after the Second World War, the Global South has asserted its role and place in holding actors accountable. 'This moment — with Israel's crimes in Palestine front and centre — is a moment that the Global South is shaping. It is holding a mirror to the West. How we think about genocide, how we think about occupation and colonisation. That is incredibly important. If international law is to have a future, the Global South needs to continue to lead the way, because the Global South understands better than anyone.' Last year, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan requested arrest warrants for Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant. Picture: AP So here we are. Two international courts, plenty of legal muscle on paper, but little in the way of teeth when it comes to the powerful. They can indict. They can admonish. But increasingly, they cannot compel. 'Yes,' Jamshidi agrees, 'but the courts are a critical weapon in a wider ideological war. They use sound legal arguments to shape the narrative and apply political pressure. The most significant aspect of the ICC warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant was that they were the first issued for 'Western' leaders. That's not nothing.' Power has shifted. The UN Security Council, still stuck in 1945 with its five permanent members, can't agree on lunch, never mind accountability. Multipolarity has returned, and with it, a jostling of narratives. Everyone's got a skeleton to show, and no one wants to open the closet. And yet, the need for justice hasn't disappeared. If anything, it's more acute. In Gaza, in Sudan, in Ukraine, in Myanmar, real people continue to pay the price for the hubris and avarice of their leaders. The legal frameworks exist. The moral arguments are clear. But the enforcement mechanisms are laughably absent. What's next? So what comes next? Some argue for regional courts — African, Asian, or European criminal tribunals, more culturally and politically embedded, less burdened by the Global North-South mistrust. Others speak of truth and reconciliation commissions, like those pioneered in South Africa, which trade prosecution for collective healing. There's also the tech-utopian fantasy: AI-driven evidence collection, blockchain-protected war crime registries, crowdsourced justice via global citizen tribunals. But these ideas, while shiny, are fraught with their own dangers and easily co-opted. Realistically, what we may see is a shift toward informal legitimacy over formal legality. Sanctions, visa bans, public shaming, asset freezes — none of these are justice in the Nuremberg sense, but they may be the closest we get in a world where power trumps process. Perhaps, too, we must rethink what justice looks like. Less about punishment, more about prevention. Less about dragging leaders to The Hague, more about making it politically impossible for them to commit atrocities in the first place. That's a long road. It involves education, diplomacy, and strengthening domestic institutions. But then, so did the building of these courts. What, then, will we teach our children? There's a bench in The Hague. It sits silently beneath a row of flags and beside the empty dock where tyrants are supposed to face their reckoning. Today, it feels like theatre — well-meaning theatre, perhaps, but theatre all the same. A performance of justice rather than its practice. And yet, something nags at the conscience. That small, stubborn belief that laws matter. That truth has weight. That even in an age of polarisation and propaganda, the idea of accountability shouldn't die so easily. Maybe the ICC is failing. Maybe the ICJ is ignored. But the alternative isn't attractive, and perhaps, as Jamshidi argues, the symbolism of its rulings and the discomfort those rulings impart outweigh the futility of its warrants.
