Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak today with a profound sense of sadness for the innocent civilians who have lost their lives in Gaza and Israel. No civilian should be the target of the violence of war. There is no place anywhere for racism, for discrimination, for antisemitism or for Islamophobia. The difference between what I am saying and what Labor and the coalition have said is that I condemn and mourn all civilian deaths. I'm disgusted at the active dehumanisation of Palestinians. The major parties have refused to condemn Israel's genocidal mission. Such is the devaluation of Palestinian lives that most in here couldn't even make mention of the 75 years of Israeli oppression. It's Nakba once again. For shame!

Israel has now killed thousands of Palestinians and injured thousands more. Most are women and children. UNRWA has said Gaza is being strangled and it seems that the world right now has lost its humanity. The loss of humanity has been on glaring display in this chamber today. The silence of governments like ours on Israel's apartheid reeks of hypocrisy. For shame! Gaza has run out of body bags. Gaza is being bombed to dust, and Western governments are complicit. You are enabling genocide and the annihilation of Gaza and Palestinians.

We have a government championing Israel's right to defend—that is, the terrorising and killing of more innocent civilians. There is something harrowingly wrong with those in charge who can't see the war crimes and the collective punishment being meted out by Israel and, even worse, are giving a moral pass to Israel to do whatever it wants to civilians. But the people are with Palestine. Hundreds are marching across the world. Stop the war on Gaza, end Israel's illegal occupation and free Palestine.