Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

'Israel is now actually rolling out the Nakba of Gaza. In the forefront, this is the Nakba of Gaza. The Nakba of Gaza 2023: that's how it will end.' These are not my words nor the words of a shock jock. These are the words of senior Israeli minister Avi Dichter, a member of Israel's security cabinet. When another Israeli minister was asked if the expectation is that Israel will drop what amounts to 'some kind of nuclear bomb on all of Gaza, flattening them, eliminating everybody there', he responded: 'That's one way. The second way is to work out what's important to them, what scares them, what deters them.' I can tell you what's important: Palestinian children and their families being killed and lives destroyed.

To many in the Australian community, with the equivalent of two nuclear bombs already dropped on civilians and civilian infrastructure, Gaza's destruction is too close to home. This weekend I received calls from constituents who reported to me hundreds of family members killed, traumatised and displaced in this catastrophe—family members left injured and trapped, literally living among corpses with no end in sight. A ceasefire must be immediate. We must demand it now, not as another process but now and not tomorrow, because every second counts.

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