Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Last month the ABC reported on a family in Gaza who were eating bread made from animal feed and tea made from sticks. This was the only nourishment that they had to offer their desperately hungry children. The family reportedly made the bread after purchasing what they thought was a small bag of milled flour at an inflated price, but the flour turned out to be donkey food. This is the reality of life and death in Gaza.

Children and young people are the worst off. A UNICEF report found that, in January, 15 per cent of children under the age of two in northern Gaza were acutely malnourished and almost three per cent were close to death. This starvation is man-made, directly caused by the Israeli government's systematic bombing to smithereens of Palestinian land, people and resources and by the blocking of critical aid into Gaza. The Israeli government is not just defying the ruling of the International Court of Justice to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide; it is actively accelerating and intensifying that genocide. Israel has barred UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, from making aid deliveries in northern Gaza, where the threat of famine is highest. UNRWA described this as outrageous, noting that this is intentional obstruction of life-saving assistance during a man-made famine.

Yet the Australian government has dragged its heels. I'm glad that the government has agreed to the sentiments in their amendment to our motion, but there is so much more that the government could and must be doing. How many more Palestinians must perish? How many more children must starve? How many more people must be displaced before this government acts upon its responsibility to actively work to stop the crime of genocide?

The Greens are calling on the government to, as well as call for a ceasefire and humanitarian aid, stop all military trade and cooperation with Israel, to impose sanctions on the entire Israeli war cabinet, to stop the transfer of information from Pine Gap that is supporting Israeli military operations—including, presumably, information supporting where to guide their missile strikes that are killing Palestinians—and to investigate for war crimes Australians who have served with the Israel Defense Forces in their genocidal war.

This is likely to be my last speech in this place about justice and freedom for Palestinians, but I can assure you that my campaigning, along with that of all of us Greens and the millions of people across the Australian community, will continue until Palestine is free.