Media Report 2025.04.25

Anti-Semitism isn’t a party matter, Mark Dreyfus
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/antisemitism-isnt-a-party-matter-mark-dreyfus/news-story/ff3646bc82631c9dbeae8f70fee39ad8
Until recently I was convinced that Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus had no sense of humour. Zero, zip, zilch. How wrong I was.
In my defence, the priggish Dreyfus had given every impression he is devoid of humour. It was, I had thought, a perception reinforced beyond doubt in 2023 when he berated a female journalist at a press conference, reminding her he was a “Minister of the Crown” and raising his voice as he angrily told her: “Do not interrupt.”
But it turns out he is an adroit piss-taker, albeit one with a dark sense of humour. Last week we learned Dreyfus has, through Labor’s how-to-vote cards, urged his constituents of Isaacs to preference Greens candidate Matthew Kirwan at number two.
That’s right. Dreyfus, a prominent Jewish-Australian federal cabinet minister, has a done a vote-swapping deal with the party that abhors, irrespective of what its mouthpieces claim, the very existence of Israel.
We look forward to Dreyfus’s next comedy act. Perhaps he will claim, deadpan, he had no choice but to make this deal, given he holds his seat by only by a 9.5 per cent margin and Isaacs has been continuously held by Labor for just the past 30 years?
This is the same bloke who in January, after international criticism of the Albanese government’s appallingly lax response to a massive increase in anti-Semitism in this country, was sent to Israel to “demonstrate Australia’s longstanding friendship with the Israeli people and our commitment to peace in the Middle East”.
It was seen as a cynical ploy. Shadow frontbencher Julian Leeser, who is also Jewish, denounced the trip as a “pre-election gimmick”.
At the time I thought Dreyfus should be given some slack. After all, he is the son of a Holocaust survivor. Who knows, I thought, maybe his is the only voice in cabinet lambasting those who downplay or outright ignore anti-Semitism, whether their motivation is to shore up Western Sydney and inner-city seats or to placate the growing number of party members – including those at ministerial level – who despise Israel.
I can think of many ways to demonstrate Australia’s longstanding friendship with the Israeli people. Favourably preferencing a candidate who has called for Israel to be held accountable for “genocide and apartheid” is not one of them, but that is exactly what Dreyfus has done.
You would think voters, particularly Jewish-Australians, are entitled to an explanation. Dreyfus finally broke his silence on Wednesday when asked, but offered nothing substantive. The decision was a “matter for the party”, he insisted repeatedly.
That is a weasel excuse. To imply this outcome was out of his hands is a misrepresentation. For example, Dreyfus’s colleague and fellow religionist Josh Burns, who holds the Melbourne seat of Macnamara, is running an open ticket. His Labor predecessor Michael Danby, who is also of the same faith, told Sky News this week Dreyfus’s decision was “not justifiable” and “not ethical”.
Let’s take a quick selection of quotes from the Greens’ federal representatives to remind the Attorney-General how entrenched hatred of Israel is within the Greens. We begin with Western Australian senator Dorinda Cox. “I stand in solidarity with Palestinian people in their struggle against settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing,” she declared last year.
That same year Queensland senator Penny Allman-Payne said military exports to Israel further the “genocidal ambitions of an apartheid state”.
The three Brisbane-based Greens MPs are equally condemnatory. Stephen Bates (Brisbane) said last year parliament “must not continue to support Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza”, a phrase repeated verbatim the next month by Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan). Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith) claimed in 2024 that Israel was conducting “a manufactured and engineered famine” in the region.
Tasmanian senator Peter Whish-Wilson resorted to false equivalence to smear Israel in 2023, when he demanded an investigation into “war crimes committed by both parties in this horrific conflict”. That’s the same Whish-Wilson who in 2014 took umbrage at the practice of referring to Islamic State medievalists as “terrorists”. It “demonises people”, he complained.
As for Queensland senator Larissa Waters, she inadvertently revealed much about the Greens’ attitudes towards those who would destroy Israel when she wrote in March that Gaza has “endured an invasion that … should have never occurred”.
Likewise, South Australian senator Sarah Hanson-Young said in 2023 that “the invasion in Gaza … cannot be justified”. And less than a fortnight after the horrific October 7 atrocities, Western Australian senator Jordon Steele-John called for parliament “to condemn the war crimes of the State of Israel” and “to oppose its impending invasion” of Gaza. In other words, Israel has no right to defend itself.
In 2023, Tasmanian senator Nick McKim claimed: “The Zionist lobby’s playbook is to use the media to attack and undermine pro-Palestine figures here in Australia in a bid to cloud … the destruction of Gaza and the slaughter of the people who live there.”
South Australian senator Barbara Pocock in 2024 described the situation in Gaza as “unfolding genocide”. In that same speech she called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador to Australia and the sanctioning of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet. She did not mention Hamas.
In 2024, NSW senator David Shoebridge speciously claimed that “military equipment trade” between Australia and Israel was used to “literally fuel the genocide”. In a provocative insinuation, he also asserted that Israeli companies were producing weapons that were “literally being tested on the Palestinian people as we speak”. Tested?
Newbie Victorian senator Steph Hodgins-May was, at least for a Greens politician, unusually tempered when last year she referred to the Israeli government’s “bloody assault” in Gaza. No doubt she is still smarting from a much-deserved backlash in 2016 when, as Greens candidate for Melbourne Ports, she insulted her would-be constituents when she withdrew from a debate with her Labor and Liberal contenders after learning it would be co-hosted by The Australian Jewish News and Zionism Victoria.
One could write an entire column and then some on Greens deputy leader and senator Mehreen Faruqi’s diatribes against Israel. But nothing better sums up her contempt for that country than her concluding a speech in 2021 by declaring: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Then there is Greens leader Adam Bandt, who has a well-earned reputation for obtuseness and dissembling when Hamas is mentioned. When its members last month tortured and slaughtered brave Palestinians who protested the terrorist group’s stranglehold, who was to blame in Bandt’s opinion? Why Israel, of course.
As for Dreyfus, small wonder he was heckled in February when he told the Sky News Anti-Semitism Summit: “The Australian government stands with Jewish-Australians in the fight against anti-Semitism.” His latest actions have vindicated the audience’s scorn.
It is simple as this, Mark Dreyfus. When it comes to anti-Semitism, your conscience cannot be a matter for the party.
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Israel army warns of ‘larger’ Gaza assault as strikes kill 55
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/israel-army-warns-of-larger-gaza-assault-as-strikes-kill-55/news-story/b2bc868fa8b0a8d1e2c60dc820798eec
Gaza rescue teams and medics said Israeli air strikes killed at least 55 people on Thursday, as the military threatened an even larger offensive if hostages were not freed soon.
Israel resumed its military assault in the Gaza Strip on March 18, after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire that had brought a temporary halt to fighting in the blockaded Palestinian territory.
Israel’s army chief, visiting troops in Gaza on Thursday, threatened to expand the offensive in Gaza if hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel were not released.
“If we do not see progress in the return of the hostages in the near future, we will expand our activities to a larger and more significant operation,” Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said.
The warning came as the army issued fresh evacuation orders for northern areas of Gaza ahead of a planned attack.
Earlier in the day, six members of one family — a couple and their four children — were killed when an air strike levelled their home in northern Gaza City, the civil defence agency said in a statement.
Nidal al-Sarafiti, a relative, said the strike happened as the family was sleeping.
“What can I say? The destruction has spared no one,” he told AFP. Nine people were killed and several wounded in another strike on a former police station in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, according to a statement from the Indonesian hospital, where the casualties were taken.
“Everyone started running and screaming, not knowing what to do from the horror and severity of the bombing,” said Abdel Qader Sabah, 23, from Jabalia.
Israel’s military said it struck a Hamas “command and control centre” in the area but did not say whether it was the police station.
In another deadly attack, the bodies of 12 people were recovered after the Hajj Ali family home, also in Jabalia, was struck, the civil defence said.
Another 28 people were killed in strikes across the territory, medics and the civil defence agency reported.
They came as the Israeli military ordered Palestinians living in the northern areas of Beit Hanoun and Sheikh Zayed to evacuate ahead of an attack.
“Due to ongoing terrorist activities and sniper fire against IDF troops in the area, the IDF is intensely operating in the area,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X.
The United Nations has warned that Israel’s expanding evacuation orders across Gaza are resulting in the “forcible transfer” of people into ever-shrinking areas.
Aid agencies estimate that the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once since the war began.
Killed ‘one by one’
In the aftermath of a strike in Khan Yunis, AFP footage showed bodies on the ground, including those of a young woman and a boy in body bags, surrounded by grieving relatives kissing and stroking their faces.
“One by one we are getting martyred, dying in pieces,” said Rania al-Jumla who lost her sister in another strike in Khan Yunis.
Since Israel resumed its military operations, at least 1,978 people have been killed in Gaza, raising the overall death toll to at least 51,355 since the war began, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
The military acknowledged on Thursday that Israeli tank fire had killed a UN worker in the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah last month, according to an investigation’s initial findings.
It had initially denied operating in the area where a Bulgarian employee of United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) was killed on March 19.
Bulgaria said it had received an “official apology” from Israel over the killing.
The findings came after the military on Sunday reported on a separate probe into the killing of 15 Palestinian emergency workers in Gaza.
It admitted that operational failures led to their deaths, and said a field commander would be dismissed.
The war was ignited by the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
During the attack, militants also abducted 251 people and took them to Gaza. Of those, 58 remain in captivity, including 34 the military says are dead.
Israeli officials maintain that the ongoing military campaign is essential to securing the release of the remaining hostages.
However, many families of the captives, along with thousands of protesters, have strongly criticised the authorities for pressing ahead with the offensive rather than striking a deal.
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Pope Francis kept up routine of calling Gaza until the end
His calls were a source of comfort and protection, according to the small Christian community sheltering around a church compound.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/the-wall-street-journal/pope-francis-kept-up-routine-of-calling-gaza-until-the-end/news-story/1a784d3256bf774aae8d7a8a727b7f90
Even as he was dying, Pope Francis kept to a routine that had become a near-daily ritual for him over the past 18 months: calling the only Catholic church in Gaza.
On Saturday, two days before his death, he phoned the parishioners of the Palestinian enclave’s Holy Family Church at precisely 8 p.m. local time. He did so throughout the war between Hamas and Israel, even when he was sick or hospitalized.
To the roughly 450 Palestinian Christians who have taken refuge inside the church, nestled in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, the pope’s video calls represented a lifeline and a source of hope and strength. Parishioners would ask him to give a blessing for their sick and elderly, for their children and newborn babies through the cellphone screen.
Now, they and other Gazans are grappling with the loss of the pope, who seemed to be one of the only world leaders who never forgot them or their suffering.
“His calls meant everything to us,” said Issa Anton, 46, a parishioner who often assisted the priests. “We were the only parish in the world that received daily calls from the pope. It made us feel less alone.” When he ran errands, Anton sometimes carried the cellphone of Father Yusuf Asad, one of the parish’s senior priests. One time, Pope Francis phoned, and Anton told him he needed an hour to get back to the church.
“He called twice or three times to check if I made it back safely,” Anton said. “He knew what was happening in Gaza. He was always up to date.” Each time he called, one of the first questions he would ask was: “What did you eat today?” On Saturday, Francis didn’t turn on his video. The parishioners understood. They knew he was ill.
“Buono sera santo padre,” the priests greeted him, as always, in Italian: “Good evening, Holy Father.” Some parishioners came closer to listen to the pope’s voice, recalled George Antone, a relative of Issa’s and the head of the church’s emergency committee.
“He asked about the daily situation in Gaza, and he made sure that we are all safe,” he said. “Then he asked us to pray for him.” Christianity has existed for centuries in Gaza, which is mentioned in the Bible several times including as the place where Samson was imprisoned and met his death. Once thriving, the Christian community in Gaza has been in decline for decades.
Before the war began, following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel that left around 1,200 dead and 251 taken hostage according to Israeli officials, there were around 1,000 Christians in a Gaza population of more than 2 million. Of that number, 135 were Catholics, according to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which oversees the Gaza parish.
As war erupted, most Christians sought refuge in either the Holy Family Church or the Church of St. Porphyrius, a Greek Orthodox church. They remained despite Israel’s orders to evacuate the areas, and the church agreed to protect them, Antone said.
The Orthodox church was hit by an Israeli airstrike in October 2023, killing more than a dozen people sheltering there, according to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and Palestinian health officials. Israel’s military said at the time that the church wasn’t the intended target and that its jets were trying to destroy a nearby Hamas command center.
The Holy Family Church has been struck by shrapnel from Israeli strikes on nearby buildings. In July, the parish’s school was bombed, killing four displaced people, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said at the time, condemning what it said was an attack on a place of refuge for hundreds of civilians. The Israeli army said at the time that the complex was a Hamas hideout.
Antone and his family fled to the church shortly after the war erupted. In December 2023, two of his female relatives were shot by an Israeli sniper inside the church compound, an attack that spurred Pope Francis to speak out, saying there were no terrorists in the church, only unarmed civilians. The Israeli army said at the time it didn’t target civilians and was reviewing the incident.
Hamas has generally tolerated Christians since it seized control of Gaza in 2007. The community has freely practiced its religion and observed religious holidays, while Christian charities and churches continued to operate. But there have been reports of Hamas militants kidnapping Christians and forcing them to convert.
Around 50 Christians have either been killed in airstrikes or crossfire or have died from disease or lack of medication since the war started, Antone said. More than 51,000 people in Gaza have been killed during the war, according to Palestinian health authorities, who don’t specify how many were combatants.
Today, there are roughly 650 Christians left in Gaza, with around 200 sheltering at the Greek Orthodox church or still living in their houses, Antone said. The rest live inside the compound of the Holy Family Church.
For the Christians who still live in their homes, coming to one of the parish’s two daily prayer sessions is risky. With no fuel or transportation, they brave crossfire, snipers and possible airstrikes to walk to the church.
Francis’ regular calls were a window into his character. Parishioners also said the contact kept them relatively safe. There have been no direct airstrikes on the church by either Israel or Hamas throughout the conflict. The church remains intact, though parts of its annex are damaged.
“That was one of the major reasons we were not attacked,” Antone said. “We had a father who was asking about us, who was taking care of us.” In one video of a call from earlier this year, the pope made funny gestures with his hands and face for a parishioner’s small child. When Yusuf told him they would all pray for him, Francis joked, “Pray in my favor, not against me.” At first, the parishioners couldn’t believe the news that Francis had died. They had just spoken to him on Saturday and saw his Sunday Easter sermon, where he called once again for a cease-fire in Gaza. Then, it finally sunk in.
“It’s like you have lost your father and you will not hear from him again,” Antone said. “We miss his voice and his sense of humor. We will miss his protection, of course.”
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Israel deletes condolence message for Pope as Australian priests pay tribute to Francis
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/israel-deletes-condolence-message-for-pope-as-australian-priests-pay-tribute-to-francis/news-story/a946a7cf21bc2f2dec7f9fc39e72c9f0
A diplomatic furore has erupted over a deleted social media post about the death of Pope Francis.
Israel’s foreign ministry deleted condolence messages it had earlier posted on social media sites X, Facebook and Instagram and there has been silence about the Pope’s death from the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This is believed to be in response to Francis’ repeated criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza where he accused Israel “of bombing children and mowing them down with machine guns”. He had said the conflict was “not a war” but instead was “cruelty” and accused Israeli actions of showing the characteristics of genocide.
Raphael Schutz, Israel’s former ambassador to the Vatican, told the Jerusalem Post that the decision to recall the posts honouring the Pope was “a mistake”.
“We shouldn’t keep score like this after someone’s death,” he said.
While many world leaders were sending public condolence messages and confirming attendance at Saturday’s funeral, including William, the Prince of Wales, Israel’s response was in contrast, starkly silent.
The Israeli foreign ministry, headed by Gideon Sa’ar had originally posted “Rest in peace, Pope Francis. May his memory be a blessing.” But soon after the posts were withdrawn.
President Isaac Herzog issued a condolence message expressing hope that Francis’ memory would “inspire acts of kindness and hope for humanity”.
Mr Schutz said it was appropriate for Israel to take umbrage with the Pope at the time the remarks were made.
He added: “But now, we’re not only talking about a head of state, but also a spiritual leader for over a billion people — nearly 20 per cent of humanity. I don’t think silence sends the right message.”
The Pope’s funeral on Saturday coincides with the Jewish Sabbath and it is unclear if there will be an Israeli attendance.
Meanwhile at Domus Australia, the spiritual home of Australian Catholics in Rome, Father Joseph Hamilton said the Pope’s great testament was the message that “in a throwaway society, elderly people have value”.
Father Joseph said: “Just like Queen Elizabeth, he was working right up to 24 hours before he passed, and he showed that you still have value whether you’re 88 or 98”.
“I think that that’s a great testimony and it’ll be very important for us in the future.”
He said Francis, 88, was “very attenuated to the elderly” and he had been very grateful to Domus Australia for caring for a large ministry of elderly Italian locals. The Pontiff had also been caring when Cardinal George Pell was released from prison and had returned to Italy.
“I met him, of course, with Cardinal Pell when the cardinal returned to Rome after being released from prison,’’ Father Joseph said.
“He gave me a beautiful rosary for my mother, which mum still has. And then when Cardinal Pell passed, he wrote me a beautiful letter. And what was very nice about it was that he signed it off, ‘Fraternally Francis’.”
Father Joseph added: “Across the road in the bar, the owners, they were married here 56 years ago, they were baptised here. They made their holy communion here. They were confirmed here, and they’ll be buried from here. And so we take care of them, and that’s known in the city. And I think Holy Father was very grateful for us.”
Meanwhile Vatican News has reported that some of the Pope’s final words were to his nurse, Massimiliano Strappetti, who had encouraged him to greet the crowds in St Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday.
The Pope told Mr Strappetti, “thank you for bringing me back to the square” after seeking reassurance from him “about managing it”. Francis then retired to rest, had a “peaceful” dinner and then after 5.30am on Monday morning the first signs of illness appeared, the Vatican News reported. Around 6.30am he waved to Mr Strappetti from his bed as a gesture of farewell before falling into a coma. He was declared dead an hour later at 7.35am.
“He did not suffer. It all happened quickly,” Vatican News said.
“It was a discreet death, almost sudden, without long suffering or public alarm, for a pope who had always been very reserved about his health.”
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Israel snubs Pope’s funeral: no ministers set to attend
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/israel-snubs-popes-funeral-no-ministers-set-to-attend/news-story/767f94ec3a1eec592ce529c54d98efb7
Israel is reportedly planning to snub Pope Francis’s funeral on Saturday, with no government ministers set to attend.
Jerusalem is sending only its ambassador to the Vatican – the lowest level of representation possible, the Times of Israel reports.
According to the Israeli embassy to the Vatican, it will be represented by ambassador Yaron Sideman.
“It’s a low point in a spiral,” a diplomat told The Times of Israel. “I hope both sides will be able to overcome the differences and climb out of this together.”
The move follows Jerusalem’s decision earlier this week to delete a foreign ministry social media post that had offered condolences for the Pope’s death.
The foreign ministry, headed by Gideon Sa’ar had originally posted “Rest in peace, Pope Francis. May his memory be a blessing.” But soon after the posts were withdrawn, with the foreign ministry saying they had been posted in error.
There has also been silence from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the pontiff’s death, although Israeli president Isaac Herzog issued a condolence message expressing hope that Francis’ memory would “inspire acts of kindness and hope for humanity”.
The deletion of the foreign ministry message is believed to be in response to Francis’ repeated criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza where he accused Israel “of bombing children and mowing them down with machine guns”.
He had said the conflict was “not a war” but instead was “cruelty” and accused Israeli actions of showing the characteristics of genocide.
Raphael Schutz, Israel’s former ambassador to the Vatican, told the Jerusalem Post that the decision to recall the posts honouring the Pope was “a mistake”.
“We shouldn’t keep score like this after someone’s death,” he said.
When Pope John Paul II died in 2005, Israel sent both then-president Moshe Katsav and then-foreign minister Silvan Shalom.
Australian Cardinal Mykola Bychok left Jerusalem for Rome overnight (AEST), with Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who is one of the candidates to replace Francis as pope
the paid concelebrated a requiem mass for Francis at Jerusalem’s Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre.
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Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill 53 as IDF issues new evacuation orders
Gaza rescue teams and medics said Israeli air strikes killed at least 53 people, as the IDF issued fresh evacuation demands ahead of a planned attack.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/middle-east/professional-failures-led-to-killing-of-palestinian-medics-in-gaza/news-story/1217882d27f978891067224baf750796
The Israeli military issued an evacuation order on Thursday for Palestinians residing in two north Gaza areas ahead of a planned attack.
“To all of the civilians of the Gaza Strip staying in the areas of Beit Hanoun and Sheikh Zayed. This is a preliminary and a final warning… move west immediately toward Gaza City,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X.
“Due to ongoing terrorist activities and sniper fire against IDF troops in the area, the IDF is intensely operating in the area, any location from which terrorist activity is carried out will be struck,” he said.
Israel resumed its intense aerial and ground assault across Gaza from March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas that had largely halted fighting in the territory.
It comes as Gaza rescue teams and medics said Israeli air strikes killed at least 53 people on Thursday.
Israel’s army chief, visiting troops in Gaza on Thursday, threatened a “larger” offensive in Gaza if hostages seized in the Hamas October 7, 2023 attack on Israel are not freed.
“If we do not see progress in the return of the hostages in the near future, we will expand our activities to a larger and more significant operation,” Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said.
Six members of one family – a couple and their four children – were killed when an air strike levelled their home in northern Gaza City Thursday, the civil defence said in a statement.
Nidal al-Sarafiti, a relative, said the strike happened as the family was sleeping.
“What can I say? The destruction has spared no one,” he told AFP.
Nine people were killed and several wounded in another strike on a former police station in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, according to a statement from the Indonesian hospital, where the casualties were taken.
“Everyone started running and screaming, not knowing what to do from the horror and severity of the bombing,” said Abdel Qader Sabah, 23, from Jabalia.
Israel’s military said it struck a Hamas “command and control centre” in the Jabalia area but did not say whether it was the police station.
In the aftermath of a strike in Khan Yunis, AFP footage showed bodies on the ground, including those of a young woman and a boy in body bags, surrounded by grieving relatives kissing and stroking their faces.
“One by one we are getting martyred, dying in pieces,” said Rania al-Jumla who lost her sister in another strike in Khan Yunis.
Since Israel resumed its military operations, at least 1,978 people have been killed in Gaza, raising the overall death toll to at least 51,355 since the war began, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
The war was ignited by the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
During the attack, militants also abducted 251 people and took them to Gaza. Of those, 58 remain in captivity, including 34 the military says are dead.
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New details on killing of paramedics in Gaza appear to contradict IDF’s account
Haaretz report comes as supreme court gives Israeli PM more time to respond to affidavit from fired Shin Bet chief
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/24/new-details-on-killing-of-paramedics-in-gaza-appear-to-contradict-idf-account

New developments have come to light in the killing of 15 Palestinian medics and rescue workers by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip last month, with evidence reportedly contradicting the Israel Defense Forces’ claim that soldiers did not fire indiscriminately at the medical workers.
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Wednesday that its analysis of the IDF’s own materials collected as part of an internal investigation into the incident contradicted the army’s claim that soldiers did not shoot indiscriminately at Palestinian ambulances and a fire engine in the early hours of 23 March.
Instead, Haaretz said, soldiers fired continuously at the vehicles for three and a half minutes from close range despite the aid workers’ attempts to identify themselves.
The family of Assad al-Nsasrah, one of two survivors of the attack, filed a petition on Wednesday with Israel’s high court seeking details of his detention in Israel. Israeli authorities confirmed last week that Nsasrah was in custody, but under emergency war legislation the whereabouts of detainees from Gaza can be kept secret and they can be barred from meeting a lawyer for 45 days. Nsasrah is not allowed legal counsel until 7 May.
In Israeli political news on Thursday, the supreme court granted Benjamin Netanyahu an extension until Sunday to file an official rebuttal to an affidavit from his fired Shin Bet chief, Ronen Bar.
The Israeli prime minister was expected to accuse the head of the general security service of lying, in an affidavit that was supposed to be submitted by the end of Thursday in response to claims made by the security chief in his own 31-page affidavit earlier this week.
Israel’s supreme court halted Bar’s controversial firing after a cabinet vote last month, widespread protests and a petition from the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, on the grounds it may be unlawful. The battle between the two men is pushing the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis.
The Shin Bet has been investigating Netanyahu’s close aides for alleged breaches of national security, including leaking classified documents to foreign media, and allegedly taking money from Qatar, which is known to have given significant financial aid to Hamas.
In his affidavit, Bar accused Netanyahu of moving to sack him after his refusal to fulfil requests including spying on anti-government protesters and helping the premier postpone his testimony in his criminal trial. Bar also claimed it had been made clear to him that he was expected to be “personally loyal” to the prime minister.
Netanyahu has said he lost trust in Bar’s capacity to lead the Shin Bet. He escalated his attack on Bar on Wednesday night, before his expected filing, by sharing a recording of a phone conversation between a Shin Bet agent and a police officer allegedly proving that the agency “persecutes rightwing activists”.
The relationship between the two men, already strained, deteriorated further after the release of a Shin Bet investigation pointing to policy issues in the run-up to the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack.
Netanyahu has never accepted any responsibility for Israel’s worst national security disaster, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, led to 251 being abducted and held hostage in the Gaza Strip, and ignited the devastating war in the Palestinian territory.
The head of Israel’s powerful Histadrut union, Arnon Bar-David, threatened on Thursday to call a nationwide strike if the government disobeyed a potential high court order to reinstate Bar, describing such a move as a “red line”.
Two previous Histadrut strikes have put Netanyahu’s far-right coalition under significant pressure. One in March 2023 was triggered by the prime minster’s decision to fire the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, over his opposition to a proposed judicial overhaul. Strike action in September 2024 took place in favour of a hostage deal and ceasefire in the war in Gaza after Hamas murdered six captives.
In Gaza on Wednesday, Israeli airstrikes across the strip killed at least 28 people, according to the territory’s health ministry, whose data the UN assesses to be accurate.
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Pro-Palestine group sends teachers classroom guide challenging ‘Anzac mythology’
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/pro-palestine-educators-send-teachers-new-classroom-resource-challenging-anzac-mythology-20250424-p5ltxr.html
Teachers have been urged ahead of Anzac Day to draw attention to Australian soldiers’ violence in the Middle East by a pro-Palestine activist group “frustrated by resources that gloss over historical evidence to glorify war”.
Teachers and School Staff for Palestine Victoria has developed and distributed a new teaching resource – called “Challenging Anzac Day” – to thousands of teachers nationwide, encouraging them to share with students details of Australian troops’ role in the Middle East just after World War I.
The lesson guide urges teachers to tell children that members of an Australian Light Horse brigade raided and patrolled hundreds of villages, killing up to 137 civilians at Sarafand al-’Amar – also known as Surafend – in late 1918 in what was then Palestine.
“The brutal massacre committed by the ANZACs at Sarafand al-’Amar chillingly portended the Nakba, the catastrophic displacement of Palestinians in 1947-1949,” the resource says.
The Surafend incident, as it became known, was examined in recent years as part of the Australian Defence Force’s Brereton report, which found there was a reluctance among military command at the time to hold Australian forces to account for breaching prohibitions against killing civilians.
The pro-Palestine group’s resource also encourages teachers to tell students that Australian troops burned a village of 170 homes south of Cairo in 1919 and “arrested and flogged up to 250 seditious agitators”.
A spokesperson for the group, teacher Ohad Kozminsky, said the publication’s goal was to “challenge the dominant and irresponsible Anzac mythology”.
“We are frustrated by resources that gloss over historical evidence to glorify war and close off critical discussion of Australia’s role in violence and imperialism. Our students deserve better,” he said.
The Education Department said it did not endorse the group’s publication.
“Anzac Day is an important opportunity for the Victorian community to come together to recognise and express appreciation for the sacrifices made by those who have served in Australia’s armed forces,” a department spokesman said.
“Our curriculum includes Anzac Day resources that align with guidance from the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne and the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.”
Another spokesperson for the activist group, teacher Lucy Honan, said the publication had been shared with teachers at public and private schools via the group’s mailing list and Instagram page.
Honan defended the group’s distribution of new classroom material as encouraging student learning.
“The current curriculum asks students to analyse the Anzac myth. So this is a resource to help teachers teach to the current curriculum. It’s not an alternative curriculum,” she said.
“It’s a resource to support what teachers are already trying to do, which is support students with a deeper understanding of what the Anzacs were involved in.”
Peter Stanley, one of Australia’s leading military historians, confirmed on Thursday that the protest group’s claims about the actions of Light Horse members were historically correct.
“The Surafend massacre was only one atrocity. In suppressing the Egyptian rebellion, the Light Horse did act robustly and often brutally,” Stanley, who is an adjunct professor at UNSW Canberra, said.
“Anzac Day is not just about praising the actions of these men – it’s about understanding them, too.
“The Light Horse was used as part of an imperial military force which was fighting a nationalist uprising in Egypt in 1919 – and they had no compunction in acting brutally.
“We should not be embarrassed about that or try to conceal it or criticise, much less condemn those who seek to remind us that it happened.”
Another prominent military historian, Jean Bou, who wrote a history of the Australian Light Horse, agreed the activists had got their facts about the legendary unit right.
“While the colouring is passionate and reflects the group’s point of view, it’s not wrong. Australians did act as ‘enforcers of empire’, as I recall one historian describing it, in Egypt in 1919,” Bou said.
“It’s an uncomfortable truth of history, and yes, it was about imperialism.”
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Israeli tank fire responsible for deadly strike at UN facility in Gaza, IDF report finds
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-25/israel-army-probe-into-death-of-un-worker/105214648
Israeli tank fire was responsible for a deadly strike on a United Nations compound in Gaza last month, contradicting prior claims from Israel’s foreign ministry that its military had “no connection” to the incident.
The strike happened on March 19, a day after a ceasefire in the Palestinian territory collapsed. The attack killed a Bulgarian worker and injured several UN employees.
The UN at the time said the compound was “well known” to both sides of the Israel-Hamas conflict and blamed an Israeli tank for the incident.
In response, Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said Israel had launched an investigation into the UN worker’s death, but “the initial examination found no connection… whatsoever” to Israeli military activity.
But in a statement on Thursday, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) said a preliminary investigation had found one of its own tanks was indeed responsible for the bombardment.
It however argued the building was not identified by its soldiers as belonging to the United Nations.
“According to the findings collected so far, the examination indicates that the fatality was caused by tank fire from IDF troops operating in the area,” an IDF statement released on Thursday said.
“The building was struck due to assessed enemy presence and was not identified by the forces as a UN facility.”
The IDF said it “regrets this serious incident and continues to conduct thorough review processes … to prevent such events in the future.”
“We express our deep sorrow for the loss and send our condolences to the family.”
At the time, a spokesperson for the UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said the “this UN compound was well known to the parties to the conflict”.
The spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said the UN was taking the step to temporarily reduce its international staff within Gaza due to renewed violence in the Palestinian territory.
Fighting in Gaza has showed little sign of letting up since a ceasefire between the two sides expired in March.
On Thursday, the IDF warned residents in two north Gaza communities to evacuate on Thursday ahead of a planned attack.
“To all of the civilians of the Gaza Strip staying in the areas of Beit Hanoun and Sheikh Zayed,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X.
“This is a preliminary and a final warning… move west immediately toward Gaza City.”
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