People in Gaza are literally begging for governments like this Labor government to notice their humanity. They are begging for their right to survive. They are begging to have access to and recognition of their basic human rights and the necessities that we all take for granted. They are fighting for their own lives while trying to share what is happening in Gaza all so that people in positions of power, like Australia’s Prime Minister and foreign minister, may take from their suffering a little bit of their courage and their humanity and finally call for a permanent ceasefire.
Senator STEELE-JOHN (Western Australia) (16:28): I move:
That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:
Given the end of the truce in Gaza and the intensification of the state of Israel’s bombing in Southern Gaza, the Australian Government must call for an immediate permanent ceasefire to end the humanitarian catastrophe occurring in Gaza, for the unconditional release of all hostages and political prisoners and for an urgent end to the siege and invasion of Gaza.
On Friday, with the expiry of the temporary truce, the State of Israel’s military recommenced its offensive in Gaza. As of this morning, 15,523 Palestinians have been killed and 41,316 wounded since 7 October. More than 700 deaths have been recorded in Gaza in the past 24 hours alone. Thousands lie under the rubble, and 85 per cent of the population of Gaza is now confirmed as displaced.
Many of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are now crammed into the south, after the State of Israel ordered civilians to leave the north in the early days of the invasion. There were no fewer than 127 incidents involving explosive weapons within the so-called safe zone in the first week after the State of Israel’s warning to move south on 14 October. And now the State of Israel is continuing to push civilians from the north to the south and yet, at the same time, they are dropping leaflets indicating that their next target is Khan Yunis, a city in the south of Gaza.
This Senate can be under no illusion: nowhere is safe in Gaza. These are the words of the UNICEF representatives speaking to the world in the past 48 hours: ‘This is the worst bombardment of the war right now in the south of Gaza. I have seen massive child casualties. We have a final warning to save children and our collective conscience. I feel like I am running out of ways to describe the horrors hitting children here. I feel like I am almost failing in my ability to convey the endless killing of children here.’
People in Gaza are literally begging for governments like this Labor government to notice their humanity. They are begging for their right to survive. They are begging to have access to and recognition of their basic human rights and the necessities that we all take for granted. They are fighting for their own lives while trying to share what is happening in Gaza all so that people in positions of power, like Australia’s Prime Minister and foreign minister, may take from their suffering a little bit of their courage and their humanity and finally call for a permanent ceasefire.
This entrapment of innocent lives within a small space which the State of Israel’s military continues to perpetrate only to then bomb those civilians can have only one result: mass civilian casualties. The dehumanising language that many senior ministers in the State of Israel have used can only further the understanding that, to them, this is acceptable. Dropping leaflets and giving evacuation warnings are offensive distractions from the reality that the policies of the State of Israel have no regard to the right of Palestinians to live.
Every member of this Senate knows the basic truth that, in Gaza, there is nowhere safe to go. The only choice left to us is whether to speak that truth or hide from it. The Greens call on the Senate once again to engage with that truth and to speak it, to uphold humanitarian law and to listen to those UN experts who are calling on the global community to recognise the very real risk of genocide and of ethnic cleansing in Palestine at the hands of the Israeli state. We must speak truth in this moment, in the name of humanity, and call for a ceasefire now.