The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) condemns in the strongest terms Israel’s ongoing and escalating violence in Lebanon, as it seeks to extend its genocidal actions beyond Palestine in a calculated effort to advance its settler-colonial agenda.
Israel’s relentless assault on Lebanese territory has flattened entire neighbourhoods, displaced over one million people, and already killed more than 1,000 Lebanese people and injured 6,000 more in the past fortnight alone.
Even as families flee the destruction and mourn their loved ones, they express unwavering solidarity with Palestine, highlighting the deep and inseparable connection between the struggles of the Lebanese people and those of the Palestinian people against their common Israeli oppressor.
Israel’s horrifying attacks on Lebanon, and the impending 12-month anniversary of the beginning of this rogue state’s latest iteration of its genocide of the Palestinian people, are stark reminders that the threat Israel poses to peace and justice across the entire region demands urgent and decisive action from the international community.
The Australian Government must move beyond its passive rhetoric and begin to act in alignment with its international legal obligations to address Israel’s ongoing violence and impunity.
We call for the application of diplomatic and economic pressure on Israel, including sanctions against Israeli government ministers, officials and other entities and individuals complicit in its genocide and international law violations, to pressure Israel to end its violence, and hold it accountable.
The time for complacency and complicity has long passed; the Australian Government must stand for once on the side of justice, end its support for the rogue state of Israel and act in concert with other middle powers to see justice and freedom in Palestine and Lebanon.
Comments attributed to APAN President Nasser Mashni:
“Just as it has collectively punished Palestinians in Gaza these past 12 months, so too has Israel brazenly declared its intention, and demonstrated its willingness, to attack and terrorise the Lebanese population.
“The international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable for its decades of international law violations has emboldened this criminal state to pursue its settler-colonial agenda unchecked, endangering the lives of millions and destablising the region.
“The fates of Lebanon and Palestine – and indeed, of marginalised and oppressed peoples the world over – are intertwined, and Australia must take strong, immediate actions that confront the root of their shared struggles head-on. We must put an end to Israel’s violence once and for all.
“Israel’s genocidal actions in Palestine and its violent campaigns across the region have persisted for far too long – this brutality cannot be allowed to continue for even one more day.”