Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Last week the world watched in horror as Hamas began its assault upon the state of Israel and upon its citizens. The scale and brutality with which innocent civilians just trying to live out their lives were targeted for slaughter, mutilation and abduction has rightly moved so many in the Australian community to voice our compassion and solidarity with all Israelis impacted and to offer help in the midst of an immense trauma.

Among the murdered were older people just living in their homes, kids enjoying a music festival and children who knew little of the history of a conflict that far predates their arrival on this planet. There is no excuse, no justification and no celebration that can be found in attacks that deliberately target and seek to traumatise civilian communities. It is not resistance. It's not a military offensive. The compassion, honesty and commitment to peace and justice, demanded of us all in this moment, call on us to call out these acts as the acts of terrorism and the blatant war crimes that they are.

In the aftermath of this attack, the government of the state of Israel has implemented several policies and operations. Rather than seek to respond with targeted operations designed to bring individual perpetrators to justice in line with international law, the state of Israel has engaged and is now engaged in a ruthless campaign of collective punishment against the Palestinians of Gaza despite the fact there are one million children living in Gaza; almost 40 per cent of the population of the Gaza Strip is under the age of 15. The Israeli military is indiscriminately bombing civilians in their homes as they try to flee or seek shelter. Neighbourhoods where so many Palestinians have spent years trying to build their lives are being reduced to rubble. The state of Israel has cut off access to water, electricity, food and medicine, meaning those rescued from the rubble face hospital wards that are little more than warehouses for the dead and dying. There is no excuse and no justification, and there can be no solidarity with such actions. It is not self-defence. It is not a military operation.

The very same commitment to compassion, to honesty, to peace and to justice required of us in response to the vile attacks of Hamas requires us to call out the war crimes being committed by the state of Israel right now in Gaza. The need to call out these war crimes is all the more urgent because it appears today that the state of Israel is in the final stages of forcing the removal of 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza in an act of collective punishment and a forced population transfer that would constitute one of the most significant humanitarian disasters and contraventions of international law in the 21st century. This cannot be condoned. It must be opposed.

The Greens reject and condemn all forms of violence, especially against civilians. We call again for an immediate ceasefire between all parties engaged, an immediate halt to the forced removal and transfer of Palestinians in Gaza and an immediate end to the military siege. Nothing can justify the violence we have seen in the last week. We can never forget that peace must always be the goal for both Israelis and Palestinians. To contribute to the work needed to attain this peace, the Australian government must be honest about the context and history surrounding what we are witnessing right now. Failing to do so will reinforce a cycle of violence to be repeated over and over again, with innocent civilians paying the highest price. The Australian government must be honest with the Australian community about the fact that the state of Israel has been committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinian peoples for so many years now, and about the fact that the far-right Netanyahu government has expanded and entrenched the state of Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine, creating the conditions that have seen Hamas' influence grow and a just peace so much more difficult to achieve.

To achieve peace, the Australian and global community must work together to bring an end to the occupation of the Palestinian territories, to ensure Hamas unconditionally releases all hostages taken on the 7 October attack, and to ensure the planners and perpetrators of the 7 October attack are brought to justice in accordance with international law and that there are independent UN and ICC backed investigations of the war crimes being committed by the state of Israel in Gaza right now. There must be a removal of Israeli settlers and security forces from all Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, including the land and sea blockade of Gaza. We must work to ensure the equitable allocation of national resources, including water, and an end to the siege that now denies Palestinians access to water and medicine. And we must work collectively to ensure full equality before the law for every person, irrespective of ethnicity, religion, language, race, gender identity, class, disability, sexuality or other social status in Palestine and Israel.

In this work, we must remain connected to the reality that thousands have died. Tens of thousands have been injured and hundreds of thousands of human beings have been displaced. These numbers increase daily. The grief of communities across the world increases daily because of the actions of Hamas and of the state of Israel, the actions they are taking against each other's civilian communities. We must respond to these horrors with compassion. We must respond with honesty. We must respond with an ironclad determination to achieve a just and lasting peace.

I indicate to the Senate now on behalf of the Australian Greens that we will be moving an amendment to the government's motion before the chamber to omit paragraph (b) and substitute the paragraph 'condemn war crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel, including the bombing of Palestinian civilians, and calls for an immediate ceasefire between all parties and an end to the war on Gaza, recognising that for there to be peace there must be an end to the state of Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories'.