Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

My thanks to Senator Grogan for her question. I appreciate her ongoing concern over the crisis unfolding in the Middle East. We have seen a devastating loss of innocent life since the heinous attacks on Israel by the brutal terrorist group Hamas. We continue to call for the unconditional release of all hostages.

Colleagues, the scenes from the explosion at a Gaza City hospital overnight are deeply distressing. As the Prime Minister said this morning, every innocent life matters whether Israeli or Palestinian. Our thoughts are with those killed, with those injured and their loved ones. The protection of civilians wherever they live must come first and respect for international humanitarian law is paramount. We condemn any indiscriminate attacks and the targeting of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals. Australia joins with others in calling for international law to always be upheld.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate, and we reiterate our call for safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza. We support the establishment of a corridor to enable humanitarian needs to be met and to ensure the $10 million in humanitarian assistance we have announced reaches those who need it. We are encouraging the work of the United States, Egypt and others towards this goal.

As I told this place earlier this week, our calls for international humanitarian law to be respected are about protecting innocent life. But they are also about our shared interests. They are about containing this conflict—and containing this conflict matters. If conflict were to spill over across the region, risks to Israel's security would be compounded, as they would for Israeli and Palestinian civilians and civilian populations throughout the region. Averting regional escalation matters to Israel. It matters to the people of the region and it matters to the world.