Media Report 2025.06.11
ISRAEL-PALESTINE MEDIA REPORT
11.6.25
Australia, UK sanction Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich
ABC | Matthew Doran & Tom Crowley | 11 June 2025
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-11/australia-to-sanction-two-israeli-ministers/105401564
- Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Norway and the United Kingdom have announced sanctions against far-right Israeli government ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
- The pair will face a travel ban and their assets will be frozen.
- The United States, Mr Ben-Gvir and Mr Smotrich have condemned the decision.
Australia has issued sanctions against two of the most controversial members of Israel’s government, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, accusing the men of inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
In a joint action by the Australian, British, Canadian, New Zealand and Norwegian governments, which has drawn condemnation from the governments of the US and Israel, the pair will face travel bans and have their assets frozen.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the men had “incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights”.
“Extremist rhetoric advocating the forced displacement of Palestinians and the creation of new Israeli settlements is appalling and dangerous,” she said in a joint statement with her foreign colleagues.
“These actions are not acceptable. We have engaged the Israeli Government on this issue extensively, yet violent perpetrators continue to act with encouragement and impunity.”
Mr Ben-Gvir serves as national security minister in Israeli Prime Minister’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, while Mr Smotrich is the finance minister.
Senator Wong said the sanctions were not evidence Australia was deviating from its support for Israel’s security in the wake of Hamas’ deadly attacks on October 7, 2023.
“Today’s measures are targeted towards individuals who in our view undermine Israel’s own security and its standing in the world,” she said.
“We continue to want a strong friendship with the people of Israel based on our shared ties, values and commitment to their security and future.”
The minister also noted the sanctions were focused on Mr Ben-Gvir and Mr Smotrich’s conduct with regards to the West Bank, but argued the measures could not be seen “in isolation from the catastrophe in Gaza”.
“We continue to be appalled by the immense suffering of civilians, including the denial of essential aid,” Senator Wong said.
“There must be no unlawful transfer of Palestinians from Gaza or within the West Bank, nor any reduction in the territory of the Gaza Strip.”
‘Outrageous’
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the Israeli government had been informed about a “UK decision to include two of our ministers on the British sanctions list”.
“It is outrageous that elected representatives and members of the government are subjected to this kind of measures,” he said.
“I discussed it earlier today with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and we will hold a special government meeting early next week to decide on our response to this unacceptable decision.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the sanctions, saying they “do not advance US-led efforts to achieve a ceasefire, bring all hostages home, and end the war.
“We reject any notion of equivalence: Hamas is a terrorist organisation that committed unspeakable atrocities … We remind our partners not to forget who the real enemy is.”
Senator Wong told the ABC’s Radio National Breakfast she could not confirm whether the US had been notified of the decision, saying only the government had “engaged with others as appropriate”.
“There are occasions on which in our alliance [with the US] we have had differences of views and differences of approach, but obviously there remains a great deal of strategic alignment across many domains,” she said.
Coalition frontbencher Dan Tehan did not directly criticise the government’s decision but told Radio National Breakfast the government needed to explain why it had imposed sanctions given the US position.
“We all want peace, but if the people leading the discussions trying to get peace, the US, are saying this is likely to be unhelpful, why has the Australian government done this? They’re the questions that the government needs to answer, and hopefully they’ll be very clear,” he said.
Ben-Gvir and Smotrich hit back
The pair of Israeli ministers are two of the most outspoken far-right politicians calling for the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, which the International Court of Justice ruled were unlawful in 2024.
Late last month, the Israeli government announced plans to establish 22 new settlements in the West Bank, and legalise some which had already been built without government approval.
The pair have also agitated for continuing fighting in Gaza and the return of Jewish settlements in the strip.
Mr Smotrich has said he would allow “not even a grain of wheat” to enter Gaza, adding that the strip would be “entirely destroyed” during the war.
Mr Ben-Gvir has called for the Palestinian population to be pushed out of Gaza, saying “we must encourage emigration”.
He has also repeatedly fuelled tensions in Jerusalem’s Old City by insisting Jewish people can pray on the Temple Mount, something reserved solely for Muslim worship, and the replacement of the Al-Aqsa mosque with a synagogue.
The national security minister also has a number of criminal convictions, including incitement of racism and supporting a terrorist organisation.
A fortnight ago, the men joined nationalist Israelis marching through the Old City on Jerusalem Day, where some of the participants chanted slogans such as “death to Arabs” and “may your village burn”.
The sanctions were first reported by British newspaper The Times, prompting early responses from Mr Ben-Gvir and Mr Smotrich directed at the UK government.
“We passed Pharaoh, we will also pass Starmer’s wall,” Mr Ben-Gvir said.
“I will continue to work for the State of Israel and the people of Israel without fear or intimidation.”
Mr Smotrich said he viewed the decision with contempt.
“Britain has already tried once to prevent us from settling the cradle of our homeland, and we cannot do it again,” he said.
“We are determined God willing to continue building.”
The UK has sharpened its criticism of Israel in recent weeks, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer foreshadowed sanctions against Israel in a joint statement with Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Israel’s humanitarian blockade of Gaza has been roundly criticised by leaders, with Mr Macron labelling it as “shameful”.
Senator Wong told the ABC’s News Breakfast the “statement” made by several countries acting together to impose sanctions was “as important as the effect of the sanctions”.
“And I think the fact that the countries who have imposed these sanctions are countries who have historical relationships with the state of Israel does demonstrate the level of concern that we have about what is occurring.”
++++++
Federal politics live: US condemns Australia’s joint sanctions on Israeli ministers
ABC | Courtney Gould | 11 June 2025
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-11/federal-politics-live-june-11/105400110
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has condemned Australia’s sanctions against two far-right Israeli government ministers.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced on Wednesday morning Australia would join New Zealand, Canada, Norway and the United Kingdom in sanctioning Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
++++++
Israel deports Greta Thunberg after boarding Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla ship
ABC / Reuters | 10 June 2025
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-10/greta-thunberg-boards-flight-to-sweden/105400928
- Swedish activist Greta Thunberg is en route to Sweden after being deported from Israel.
- The 22-year-old and other crew members were detained aboard a charity boat as it neared Gaza on Monday.
- The activists were carrying humanitarian aid, including rice and baby formula, and said they wanted to raise international awareness about the crisis in Gaza, which has been devastated by months of war.
Israel has deported Swedish activist Greta Thunberg after she was detained on a charity boat as it neared Gaza, the Israeli foreign ministry said.
Thunberg was on a flight to France, where she would continue her journey to her home country Sweden, the ministry said on Tuesday.
She usually refuses to fly because of the carbon emissions of the airline industry.
The 22-year-old and a group of activists were taken to Tel Aviv airport ahead of their deportation, after the Israeli navy prevented them from sailing to Gaza on Monday.
Israeli forces boarded the Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s yacht, the Madleen, and seized 12 crew members, including campaigner Thunberg.
Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement.
They will be held in a detention centre ahead of a court hearing.
It was not immediately clear when that would happen.
“Those who refuse to sign deportation documents and leave Israel will be brought before a judicial authority, in accordance with Israeli law, to authorise their deportation.”
The activists had been carrying a small cargo of humanitarian aid, including rice and baby formula, and said they wanted to raise international awareness about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which has been devastated by months of war.
Israel dismissed the voyage as a pro-Hamas publicity stunt.
“The tiny amount of aid that was on the yacht and not consumed by the ‘celebrities’ will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels,” the Foreign Ministry said.
Thunberg accused Israel of kidnapping her in international waters, in a video that was recorded ahead of the Israeli navy action.
“I urge all my friends, family and comrades to put pressure on the Swedish government to release me and the others as soon as possible,” she said.
Greta Thunberg releases a pre-recorded statement saying the Freedom Flotilla ship the Madleen has been intercepted.
Israel has imposed a naval blockade on the coastal enclave since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007.
Israel said it aims to stop weapons from reaching Hamas.
The blockade has remained in place through conflicts including the present war, which began when Hamas-led militants rampaged through southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages by Israeli tallies.
Israel’s offensive against Hamas has since killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in Hamas-run Gaza.
In March, Israel imposed a total blockade of all supplies reaching Gaza, which the United Nations said was driving the population to the brink of famine.
Over the past two weeks, Israel has allowed in limited food supplies to be distributed by a new Israeli-backed group, a step Israel said was necessary to prevent Hamas from diverting aid.
++++++
‘Sucker for a good cause’ joins uni fray
The Age| CBD | 11 June 2025
The University of Melbourne’s newish vice chancellor, Emma Johnston, made a little history when she punted two pro Palestine protesters from the august institution after the students and about 16 of their mates stormed and occupied the office of Jewish academic Steven Prawer last year. But as they say in the classics, this ain’t over yet.
The two students – another two were suspended over their October 2024 stunt – were given 30 days to appeal and have already attracted some legal heavyweights. But there’s just one teensy-tiny issue.
Greg Barns, no stranger to these matters, having acted as an adviser to Wikileaks ex-con Julian Assange, and in a lengthy list of right-on causes, has teamed-up with Victorian criminal law legend and former magistrate Rob Stary to add some heft to the students’ crusade.
Stary’s list of former clients is, well, quite something. We’ve got “Jihad” Jack Thomas, the first Australian to be convicted under the post 9/11 terrorism laws, Assange – him again – and even Melbourne gangland figures Tony Mokbel and the late Carl Williams.
The high-profile pair are joined by fellow bar-table veteran Leonard Hartnett, and pro Palestine legal sister act Bernadette and Ran Zaydan, who established their Watermelon Defence Fund, which, well, the name says it all.
Stary said he got involved after the other lawyers approached him. “Always a sucker for a good cause,” he told CBD. And that teensy-tiny issue? Uni rules state that the students have no right of representation in the appeals process, so their near-basketball squad of legal advisers are, at this stage any way, just that.
When CBD approached, the university said again that it wasn’t going to provide details on the confidential disciplinary matters, and Prawer declined to comment.
++++++
Israel deports Thunberg after ship seizure
The Age (& Sydney Morning Herald) / AP, Reuters | Yesica Fisch | 11 June 2025
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the country’s foreign ministry said, a day after the Gaza-bound ship she was on was seized by the Israeli military.
The 22-year-old left on a f light to France and was then headed to her home country of Sweden, the ministry said on X. It posted a photo of Thunberg, who shuns air travel, seated on a plane.
Thunberg was one of 12 passengers on board the Madleen, a boat carrying a small cargo of aid for people in war-torn Gaza.
Israeli naval forces seized the boat early on Monday about 200 kilometres off Gaza’s coast, according to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, the group that organised the journey. The boat, ac companied by Israel’s navy, ar rived in the Israeli port of Ashdod on Monday evening, Israel’s foreign ministry said.
Adalah, a legal rights group in Israel representing Thunberg and the other activists, said Thunberg, two other activists and a journalist had agreed to be deported from Israel. Eight activists refused deportation, were being held in detention and their case was set to be heard by Israeli authorities, it said.
The activists left Sicily a week ago to protest against Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip and its restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid. Both have put the territory of about 2.3 million Palestinians at risk of famine.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he had ordered the military on Sunday to pre vent the boat from reaching Gaza, calling the mission a propaganda effort in support of Hamas.
He said he ordered the activists to be shown a video of the atrocities committed during the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, so they could “see exactly who the Hamas terrorist organisation they came to support and for whom their work is, what atrocities they committed against women, the elderly, and children, and against whom Israel is fighting to defend itself”, London’s Telegraph reported.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition said the activists were “kidnapped by Israeli forces” while trying to deliver desperately needed food, baby formula and medical supplies.
“If you see this video, we have been intercepted and kidnapped in international waters by Israeli occupational forces or forces that support Israel,” Thunberg said in a video released by the group, filmed before the vessel was captured.
“I urge all my friends, family and comrades to put pressure on the Swedish government to release me and the others as soon as possible.”
US President Donald Trump dismissed the statement: “I think Israel has enough problems without kidnapping Greta Thunberg,” he said. “She’s a young, angry person … I think she has to go to an anger management class.” He made a simi lar remark about the then 16 year-old activist in 2019.
Israel has dismissed the aid ship as a stunt, with its foreign ministry labelling the boat “the selfie yacht”. Officials said it carried what amounted to less than a truckload of aid.
“This wasn’t humanitarian aid. It’s Instagram activism,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said.
Israel said the aid on board would be sent to Gaza through established channels and circulated footage of what appeared to be Israeli military personnel offering sandwiches and water to the activists, who were wearing life vests.
After an 11-week total blockade aimed at pressuring Hamas, Israel started allowing some basic aid into Gaza last month, but humanitarian workers and experts say it is not enough and have warned of famine unless the blockade is lifted and Israel ends its military offensive.
Dozens of people have died in shootings over the past two weeks while trying to get aid from new centres run by a controversial new aid group backed by the US and Israel, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The United Nations and other aid groups have refused to work with the group, citing humanitarian concerns.
An attempt by Freedom Flotilla last month to reach Gaza by sea failed after another of its vessels was attacked by two drones while sailing in international waters off Malta, organisers said, blaming Israel for the attack.
Rima Hassan, a member of the European Parliament who is of Palestinian descent, was among six French citizens aboard. French President Emmanuel Macron earlier asked Israel to allow them to return to France as soon as possible.
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said the crew and passengers were aware of the risks and that her ministry had advised against travel to Gaza for a decade, Swedish news agency TT reported.
Israel and Egypt have imposed varying degrees of a blockade on Gaza since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.
Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent Hamas from importing arms, while critics say it amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s Palestinian population.
++++++
Eye on the ICC
The Age | Letters | 11 June 2025
Eye on the ICC
Retired Supreme Court judge Lex Lasry asks why the International Criminal Court’s actions regarding Israel and the US are “illegitimate” (“Trump is dismantling international jus tice, rule of law”, 10/6). Neither country signed the Rome Statute setting up the court, so it has no jurisdiction over them. Israel knew, with the ICC part of the same jaundiced UN system that has in recent years condemned Israel more than every other country combined, it had no chance of fair treatment, as subsequent events have proven.
The court also breached its own legislation, which states it must only prosecute officials from countries without an independent justice system incapable of doing so. This is clearly not so with Israel. The prosecutor heard the biased case against Israel from those in Gaza, including grossly under stated aid figures subsequently disavowed by the UN’s main famine-monitoring agency, but then applied for the warrant without hearing Israel’s side, despite having undertaken to do so.
All of these issues should gravely concern anyone who cares about the rule of law.
Shane Shmuel, Elsternwick
Pressure on Hamas
The suggestion by your correspondent to “slow supply of arms” to Israel (Letters, 10/6) has some errors. The “destruction of Palestine” is not occurring. Some may argue that Gaza’s infrastructure has been badly damaged. But the Israeli goal is to get the hostages back and remove the military arm of Hamas. Most of the world supports both these endeavours. Sure the footage in the media is terrible. But the innocent Gazan deaths are being caused by Hamas and its actions and its promise to continue its terrorist actions. This correspondent does not refer to the hostages and the fact that Hamas does not permit Red Cross to visit the hostages. I would have thought the best way to stop the war is that hostages are to be returned and Hamas to stop fighting and causing the killing of innocent Gazans. The pressure should be on Hamas.
Ian Fayman, Malvern East
++++++
Activists like Thunberg care about fame not the facts
The Age (& Sydney Morning Herald) | Suzanne Moore | 11 June 2025
As yet, Greta Thunberg has not had her money shot. In terms of Insta-activism, her seafaring jaunt to deliver aid to Gaza has been farcical. It was always go ing to be.
I totally support more aid going into Gaza. I want us to stop selling arms to Israel. While I support the right of Israel to exist, I do not support its right to keep on killing the people of Gaza.
But the last thing the Israel Gaza conflict needs is more martyrs. It also doesn’t need hypocrites – particularly ones who also claim to champion women’s rights. The irony is that Greta, with her dissenting views and freedom to express them, would not be tolerated by Hamas.
When it comes to the moral high road, the likes of Thunberg seek to occupy ALL of it, no matter how muddled the thinking.
Pretending you can sail into a war zone and “help” is a gran diose delusion. But, of course, Greta and her “aid boat” were largely a symbolic protest. What matters above all are the images of the selfie-yacht and the attention they can garner. Being
boarded and detained (or, as she puts it, “kidnapped”) by Israeli forces gave her exactly what she had hoped for to kick against.
This image will forever be compared with the horror show of the actual kidnapping of hostages by Hamas and other militant groups. There are girls younger than Greta, with bloodied pants, their Achilles tendons cut; a mother clutching her red-haired children whom we now know are dead; a terrified old lady being abducted. In 2023, the IDF showed Hamas body cam footage collected after the Nova festival attack to the press in London. Most of the viewers were in tears but certain activist “journalists” came out saying there was no proof of women being raped as they had not been shown that.
This is what happens when a young girl with a penchant for protest becomes too feted. She addressed national parliaments and Davos as a climate activist and was interviewed everywhere. Unsurprisingly, then, her symbolic power was soon com modified as she appeared at protest after protest, morphing effortlessly from climate change activism to Palestinian solidarity.
Political activism is now algorithmic. Hey, if you liked that cause, then try this one.
The “left” these days often seems little more than a collection of disparate causes: eco stuff, trans rights and Free Palestine. The contradictions between these beliefs are underplayed as they become bundled together as an omnicause. The omnicause can incorporate everything from animal rights to emptying jails. Forget the single issues that require specific campaigning: the omni cause is a moronic vacuum where analysis goes to die.
There may well be links between climate change and war. Many say drought was a factor in the unrest that led to the Syrian civil war.
The omnicause, though, does not do specifics. It favours symbolic demonstrations that can go viral. These simplistic spectacles of righteousness often backfire.
What did Fossil Free Books achieve, for instance? It decided to campaign against companies that had any connection to Israel. The result was that investment firms stopped funding book festivals. How this helped either the environment or in deed the Palestinian cause is something of a mystery
Thunberg’s stunt has been similarly self-aggrandising and vacuous. The omnicause does not require logic, consistency or even coherence. It is closer to acting than activism. It depends on melodrama and a narrative of provocative images.
Thunberg may be brave and have been prepared to sacrifice herself, though for what I am not sure. But now we have seen the pictures, I am afraid that what she has sacrificed is her integrity.
The omnicause burns itself out in the end because it has no actual strategy. It simply signifies tribal loyalty. It gobbles everything up and spits out its participants, who simply move on to the next “wrong” thing.
You might think that, for Thunberg, her ship has sailed. But that does not mean she won’t clamber aboard the next one that hoves into view.
This piece first appeared in the Telegraph in the UK
++++++
Islamic preacher ‘humiliated’ Jewish community, court told
Sydney Morning Herald | Riley Walter | 11 June 2025
Speeches given by an Islamic preacher in the wake of the October 7 attacks were intended to insult, humiliate, intimidate and offend Jews and dehumanised members of the Jewish community, the Federal Court has heard.
Wissam Haddad, who refers to himself as Abu Ousayd on line, is in court over comments he made during five speeches delivered at the Al Madina Dawah Centre in Bankstown in late 2023 and subsequently published on social media.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s co-chief executive, Peter Wertheim, and its deputy president, Robert Goot, launched the legal action last October, claiming Haddad’s speeches, in which he called Jews a “vile” and “treacherous” people and referred to them as the descendants of “apes” and “pigs”, breached the Racial Discrimination Act and were antisemitic.
Wertheim and Goot have asked the Federal Court for an injunction banning Haddad and his centre from publishing similar content online, and for the court to order the publication of a “corrective notice” on the centre’s social media.
The pair filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission in March 2024, but had taken legal action after mediation was unsuccessful. They have applied for the cost of legal action to be covered, but have not sought any damages.
In his opening submissions, Peter Braham, SC, acting for Wertheim and Goot, said Haddad’s speeches were meant to intimidate Jewish people.
“It’s threatening, humiliating, and offensive,” Braham said.
In his defence, Haddad said the speeches were not directed at, and did not refer to Australian Jewish people, and were derived, in substance, from the Qur’an.
Haddad’s barrister, Andrew Boe, argued that the speeches were given to a private audience at the Al Madina Dawah Centre and intended to be viewed only by members of the Muslim community, and therefore did not amount to a breach of racial discrimination laws.
It was “objectively unlikely that any Jewish person in Australia would have come across the speeches without them being picked up and publicised separately by other media”, Boe said.
Boe said Haddad’s speeches did not amount to a breach of the act because “some people in a group have gone out of their way to expose themselves to speech which they might reasonably expect to be critical of Israel, and then become of fended by it”, comparing the viewing of the speeches to a “person with a prudish sensitivity seeking out pornography and then complaining about being offended by it”.
But Braham said Haddad’s speeches were intended to be broadcast publicly, and were recorded in front of a backdrop displaying the centre’s social media accounts.
“It was directed to people outside the room,” Braham said.
The speeches, Braham said, were uploaded to social media and “picked up by the popular press”.
Giving evidence yesterday, Wertheim said Haddad’s speeches were “dehumanising” and that members of the Jewish community in Australia had felt less safe since the October 7 at tacks in southern Israel, partly because of the use of “overly dehumanising language” towards Jews that was “quite alien, quite foreign to us”
“Making derogatory generalisation calling Jews a vile and treacherous people, calling them rats, cowards, those sort of things, in my view, are dehumanising, and I think would have been experienced by most Jews as dehumanising,” Wertheim said.
Boe said in Haddad’s case a preacher needed to “finely calibrate sermons delivered to their own religious community, in an emotional political environment”.
The “boundaries of legitimate debate cannot be set so narrowly as to exclude that which is not polite, bland, muted or balanced in its manner or content”, he said.
“It is of the essence of legitimate discussion in a free democratic society that there is room for the confronting, the challenging, even the shocking, and that space remains even in an environment such as the one that existed in November 2023,” Boe said.
“This is especially so in this case where those views were ex pressed by someone to members of their own religious and ethnic community, and not directed at the group from which some members now claim to be offended, insulted, humiliated, or intimidated by some of the content of these speeches.”
Goot said he felt “much less safe, less accepted and less welcome” since October 7.
The hearing continues today.
++++++
Thunberg’s Gaza mission was more naive than brave
Sydney Morning Herald | Letters | 11 June 2025
Greta Thunberg’s ill-fated voyage to Gaza wasn’t brave, it was dangerously naive. She called it a “kidnapping” after the Israeli Navy stopped her boat, yet smiled as she was handed a sandwich. Real hostages don’t get photo opportunities. She claimed to bring aid to Gazans, but seemed unaware, or indifferent, to whom she was really helping. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz responded by having her crew watch raw footage of the October 7 atrocities. “Let them see who they’re supporting,” he said (“Israel orders Greta Thunberg be shown October 7 video while in detention”, June 10). But if Greta wants a lesson in Gaza’s realities, she should look up Vittorio Arrigoni – an Italian activist murdered by Palestinian militants in 2011. He sailed in support of Gaza, too. They tortured and killed him for his trouble, calling Italy an “infidel state”. If Greta had made it to Gaza she wouldn’t have been hailed as a saviour. As a Western woman, she might not have made it out at all. Activism without awareness isn’t courage – it’s suicide dressed as solidarity.
Shane Shmuel, Elsternwick (Vic)
The Israeli military’s seizure of an unarmed aid vessel carrying humanitarian activists marks another chilling moment in a war that has long abandoned any pretence of morality (“Israel boards Gaza charity boat with Greta Thunberg on board”, June 10). This was not a warship nor a military convoy it was a boat carrying baby formula and medical supplies, intercepted in international waters. Israel’s justification? That the boat threatened its naval blockade – blockade that has turned Gaza into both a grave yard and a prison, cutting off not just food and medicine, but any remaining hope. This isn’t about security, it’s the systematic punishment of an entire population and a clear violation of international law.
Fernanda Trecenti, Fitzroy (Vic)
++++++
Anti-Jew speech ‘comfort’ claim
The Australian | James Dowling | 11 June 2025
Lawyers for jihadi preacher Wissam Haddad have argued his sermons were given to provide private “comfort” to Muslim congregants, despite accusations he was in active dialogue with reporters as a self-proclaimed “masjid (mosque) shock jock”.
Mr Haddad, whose first name is William but who is also known as Abu Ousayd, arrived at court on Tuesday ahead of his racial discrimination hearing, avoiding questions and surrounded by his legal team, staring down a four-day trial over allegations by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry that he breached the Racial Discrimination Act through his sermons in the wake of the Hamas October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
Mr Haddad or speakers at his Al Madina Dawah Centre have called Jewish people “descendants of pigs and monkeys”, recited parables about their killing and said people should “spit” on Israel so its citizens “would drown”.
In most cases, he has claimed he was referring to or reciting Islamic scripture. He sat in the front row of the Federal Court and did not rise or bow to judge Angus Stewart as proceedings began or were adjourned.
ECAJ co-chief executive Peter Wertheim and deputy president Robert Goot SC first launched court action against Mr Haddad and his Bankstown-based Al Madina Dawah Centre in October after a failed mediation process in the Human Rights Commission.
In a provocative video posted before the hearing Mr Haddad stated that “we are not going to come (to the trial) unarmed, we’re going to fight them with everything that we have”, followed by the image of a sword.
Peter Braham, representing Mr Wertheim and Mr Goot, said Mr Haddad’s behaviour had “the effect of normalising anti-Semitic prejudices and the expression of them, and (could) encourage acts of violence against Jewish people”.
“He makes no distinction between Jews who support Israel today and Jews who don’t. As we will see, in fact, the speeches were just … about Jews, ascribing to Jewish people certain negative characteristics, and encouraging his audience to hold those views,” he said. “The intent of the speeches was to persuade an audience that the Jewish people had certain immutable and eternal characteristics that caused them to come into conflict with Muslims.”
Andrew Boe, Mr Haddad, suggested a judgment against his client would unjustly limit freedom of speech, saying the “boundaries of legitimate debate cannot be set so narrowly as to exclude that which is not polite, bland (or) muted”.
“It cannot be … that Section 18C (of the Racial Discrimination Act) can be contravened because some people in a group have gone out of their way to expose themselves to speech which they might reasonably expect to be critical of Israel,” Mr Boe said.
“It would be analogous to a person with a prudish sensitivity seeking out pornography on the web and then complaining about being offended by it.
“Mr Haddad’s evidence will be (that) his motivation was to respond to expressions of great distress … by providing historical and religious context on those events in an attempt to provide spiritual comfort to them. That motivation is entirely consistent with the content of the speeches.”
He argued that Mr Haddad addressed only historical Jewish tribes referenced in the Koran or the state of Israel, not the global Jewish diaspora.
Mr Braham disputed this purported intention, and said Mr Haddad knowingly began a public dialogue with journalists who reported on his sermons, including citing articles by this masthead.
“Mr Haddad read these newspaper articles and, as you see in his speech, he responds to them … and he says, ‘Hey, journalists, get your microphones ready, I’ve got more’,” Mr Braham said.
He pointed to extracts from Mr Haddad’s speeches.
“Today, I’m going to be a masjid (mosque) shock jock, and I want to rub salt in the wound so on Monday they have something to report about,” Mr Haddad said in a speech played before the court.
ECAJ is seeking declarations that he contravened Section 18C, injunctions to remove the five offending sermons from the internet, and an order that the cleric refrain from publishing similar speeches in future.
Both the applicant and respondent have relied on expert witnesses to assess the speeches and sermons of Mr Haddad, with Mr Wertheim enlisting American professor of Islamic studies and theology Gabriel Reynolds, and Mr Haddad calling on Sheik Adel Ibrahim from the Greenacre Prayers Hall in western Sydney.
Mr Haddad will give evidence on Wednesday, with the expert witnesses to follow on Thursday.
Mr Boe cross-examined Mr Wertheim – who donned a kippah as he testified – but had three lines of inquiry cut short over questions of relevance. He probed whether ECAJ could purport to be democratically representative of Australian Jews and their general political consensus, and suggested Mr Wertheim sought to “speak for the Jews of Australia” in the trial, which he and his counsel denied.
“(You) formed the view that (Mr Haddad) had made racist smears, and this was before you actually saw any of the speeches,” Mr Boe said to Mr Wertheim, who agreed. However, Mr Wertheim said Mr Haddad’s rhetoric came during a remarkably precarious moment for Jewish Australians in the wake of the October 7 attacks.
“(There was) mob behaviour of a particularly racist nature, which is completely alien to our experiences as Australians. I was born in Australia, educated in Australia, worked in Australia, raised a family in Australia, and I’ve never encountered anything like this,” he said. “It was also the use of overtly dehumanising language at a lot of these demonstrations, and in your client’s (Mr Haddad’s) speeches, that was something quite new, quite alien, quite foreign to us. I don’t think that’s a view that was confined just to my organisation.”
Three lay witnesses attested to their distress at Mr Haddad’s remarks, but Mr Boe pointed out in each case they had only a partial comprehension of his sermons given they were interspersed with Arabic phrases.
++++++
Fake police letter threat to charity on Fuld speech
The Australian | Mohammad Alfares | 11 June 2025
Victoria Police is investigating a fake letter purporting to be from the state’s counter-terrorism command unit sent to organisers of Jewish charity Magen David Adom, warning them against allowing Israeli influencer Hillel Fuld to appear virtually.
The hoax letter falsely claimed that airing Mr Fuld’s speech at Thursday’s event in Melbourne would amount to “advocating terrorism” under federal law, and threatened the charity with prosecution if it proceeded with his virtual address.
Victoria Police confirmed the letter was a forgery and that no such directive was issued. It is now investigating the source of the document, which includes a fabricated signature from a non-existent officer and a counterfeit Victoria Police letterhead.
The letter, addressed to charity chief executive Glynis Lipson, cited Mr Fuld’s visa cancellation under section 116 of the Migration Act, which the federal government confirmed last week was due to national security concerns.
It ordered the organisation to remove all references to Mr Fuld, cancel plans for a virtual speech, and warn Victorian attendees he would not appear “in any form”.
Mr Fuld, known for pro-Israel activism and criticism of Palestinian groups, had planned to attend the event in person before his visa was revoked by the Department of Home Affairs. He later announced he would deliver his remarks via livestream instead.
The fake letter, dated June 9 and sent from a supposed office at Victoria Police headquarters, gave a 24-hour deadline and included a phone number and email address for a counter-terrorism command unit “Detective Inspector Sarah Kendrick” and “Superintendent Mark Holland” – people who do not exist within the force.
“Victoria Police has been informed by the commonwealth Department of Home Affairs that Mr Hillel Fuld’s visa was cancelled on security grounds under section 116 of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth),” the letter read.
“Material reviewed by federal agencies indicates that public dissemination of Mr Fuld’s views may constitute ‘advocating terrorism’ within the meaning of section 80.2A of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).
“Accordingly, Victoria Police directs that no live or recorded broadcast, webcast or video link featuring Mr Fuld be transmitted, screened or otherwise made available to any person or venue within the state of Victoria, including at the fundraising event promoted by Magen David Adom Australia for Thursday, 12 June, 2025.
“Failure to comply may expose your organisation and any associated Australian entities to investigation and potential prosecution for offences relating to the promotion or support of terrorist acts (Part 5.3, Criminal Code).
“Penalties include substantial fines and terms of imprisonment.”
It’s understood the fake letter was forwarded to Ms Lipson from a community WhatsApp group.
A Victoria Police spokesperson confirmed “there’s nobody at VicPol by either name (Mark Holland or Sarah Kendrick). Victoria Police is aware of a fraudulent letter being circulated purporting to be from members of counter-terrorism command. The source of the letter is being investigated.”
The latest controversy comes after Washington and Jerusalem voiced their concerns to the Albanese government over the visa cancellation.
Under Victorian law, anyone guilty of impersonating a police officer could face up to one year’s jail.
++++++
Thunberg’s deportation flight a final humiliation
The Australian / AFP | Jack Guez & Benoit Finck | 11 June 2025
Israel on Tuesday said Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from the country on a flight to France, after she was detained along with other activists aboard a Gaza-bound aid boat and taken to a Tel Aviv airport.
“Greta Thunberg is departing Israel on a flight to France,” Israel’s foreign ministry said on its official X account, along with photos of the activist on board a plane.
Israel used the deportation as a final humiliation of the activist, sending her via plane despite Ms Thunberg famously refusing to fly because of its impact on the environment. She hasn’t boarded a plane since 2015.
Five French activists who were also aboard the boat carrying aid bound for Gaza are set to face an Israeli judge, the French foreign minister confirmed Tuesday.
“Our consul was able to see the six French nationals arrested by the Israeli authorities last night,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on the same platform.
“One of them has agreed to leave voluntarily and should return today. The other five will be subject to forced deportation proceedings.”
Disparaging the Madleen and its crew as a “selfie-yacht”, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement: “Those who refuse to sign deportation documents and leave Israel will be brought before a judicial authority, in accordance with Israeli law, to authorise their deportation.”
The ministry said envoys from the activists’ home countries would meet them at the airport.
Earlier, Ms Thunberg and company refused to view a video showing the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz had planned for the activists to be shown the video before they left the country.
However, he said on Tuesday that when they saw the first scenes, “they refused to continue watching”.
“Greta [Thunberg] and her flotilla companions were taken into a room upon their arrival for a screening of the horror film of the October 7 massacre, and when they saw what it was about, they refused to continue watching,” Mr Katz said in a statement.
“The anti-Semitic flotilla members are turning a blind eye to the truth and have proven once again they prefer the murderers to the murdered and continue to ignore the atrocities committed by Hamas against Jewish and Israeli women, adults and children.”
Ms Thunberg and friends disembarked their boat at Israel’s Ashdod port, where it had been towed by the Israeli navy.
Asked about claims that Israel had “kidnapped” the activists as they allege, US President Donald Trump said: “I think Israel has enough problems without kidnapping Greta Thunberg.”
He went on to describe the young campaigner as a “young, angry person”.
“I think she has to go to anger management class. That’s my primary recommendation for her,” he said, adding: “I don’t know if it’s real anger.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted a picture of Ms Thunberg and Brazilian activist Thiago Avila beside an Israeli flag on the dock, and said the ship’s passengers and crew were being checked to ensure they were in good health.
“The ‘selfie-yacht’ docked at Ashdod Port a short while ago. The passengers are currently undergoing medical examinations to ensure they are in good health,” the Foreign Ministry said.
The Madleen, which the Israeli navy intercepted in what activists claim were international waters on Monday, reached the port north of Gaza about 8.45pm local time (2.45am AEST), escorted by the Israeli navy.
The activists set sail from Italy on June 1 to raise awareness of food shortages in the Gaza Strip, which the UN has called the “hungriest place on Earth”.
++++++
Aid ship organiser denies being ‘Hamas operative’
The Australian | Staff writers | 11 June 2025
A man accused in the UK and Israel of being a “Hamas operative” is one of the organisers behind Greta Thunberg’s aid ship that failed to reach Gaza this week.
Zaher Birawi, who describes himself as a “founding member” of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition that planned the voyage of the Madleen from Sicily to Gaza, has denied any links to the militant group.
Birawi, 63, a pro-Palestinian campaigner, says he has been awarded compensation over similar claims.
The Palestinian-British journalist live-streamed the launch of the Madleen before it set sail from Sicily carrying what Israel has mocked as a “tiny amount” of humanitarian aid.
On Monday, the Israeli navy boarded the Madleen as it neared Gaza, and towed it to the Israeli port of Ashdod, where Ms Thunberg and her fellow activists were detained ahead of their deportation.
In a Facebook post about the boat’s seizure, Birawi, who has not been named as being on the Madleen, wrote: “In a piracy operation in international waters and 150 nautical miles from Palestinian waters, the Israeli navy took control of the ship Madleen and abducted the allies on board. The Freedom Flag Alliance demands international intervention to ensure their safety and release.”
The UK Telegraph reports that in 2013 Birawi was named by Israel as a Hamas operative in Europe, and is the head of the Europal Forum, which Israel designated as a terrorist organisation in 2021.
The Europal Forum has strongly denied any terror links, and in 2021 Birawi received compensation after suing a financial database he said had wrongly placed him on a terrorism watch list, according to The Telegraph and the London Times.
In 2023, British Labour MP Christian Wakeford used parliamentary privilege to accuse Birawi of being one of four alleged “Hamas operatives”. He used special parliamentary protections to protect him from being sued to allege Birawi was a security risk.
“Birawi … was designated by Israel in 2013 as a senior Hamas operative in Europe … a publicly available video shows him hosting a 2019 event in London titled ‘Understanding Hamas’,” Mr Wakeford said.
Hamas has been proscribed as a terror group in the UK under the Terrorism Act 2000 since 2021. Birawi denies belonging to Hamas. In 2023, he said: “I am a law-abiding British citizen of Palestinian origin who carries out his obligations as an activist defending the national and human rights of Palestinians who survive under occupation,” the London Times reported.
Accusing Mr Wakeford of making baseless claims, he said the MP was attempting to “besmirch my character and, potentially, to rationalise any harm that may befall me or my family”.
The Sun on Sunday said that in 2023 Birawi had been photographed with Ismail Haniyeh, then Hamas’s political leader. Haniyeh was assassinated last year aged 61.
After the Madleen docked in Ashdod, Israel asked Ms Thunberg and fellow activists to view a video of the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, but Defence Minister Israel Katz said the group refused to watch the film when told what it was about.
Slamming their decision, Mr Katz said: “The anti-Semitic flotilla members are turning a blind eye to the truth and have proven once again that they prefer the murderers to the murdered and continue to ignore the atrocities committed by Hamas against Jewish and Israeli women, adults and children.”
++++++
Thunberg destroys her credibility
The Australian | Editorial | 11 June 2025
Greta Thunberg’s arrogant refusal to watch footage of Hamas’s barbaric October 7, 2023, massacre of innocent Jews at the Nova music festival says much about her and her defiant and dopey comrades aboard their ship of fools, towed into the Israeli port of Ashdod by the Israeli Navy on Monday.
Their gross anti-Semitism, combined with their pig-headed unwillingness to learn something of the truth about the worst mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, will ensure that instead of facing evidence of a terrible historic atrocity, they will continue being used as naive pawns by the terrorists.
Even Ms Thunberg’s reputation as an environmental activist appeared to go overboard. As Israeli soldiers were about to board the Madleen, she and her companions tossed their mobile phones into the ocean.
After being taken off the so-called freedom flotilla (a single ship), Ms Thunberg and her companions were taken to a room for the screening of the film and refused to watch. They turned a blind eye, as Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said, “to the truth and have proven once again that they prefer the murderers to the murdered and continue to ignore the atrocities committed by Hamas against Jewish and Israeli women, adults and children”.
Ms Thunberg and her similarly witless companions in made-in-China keffiyehs mindlessly spout propaganda for the Palestinian cause but refuse to watch the irrefutable evidence of Hamas’s evil, including girls younger than Ms Thunberg being pack-raped and killed; terrified elderly women being carted away among the 250 hostages; young people having their tendons severed; and savages seizing a young mother with her two small red-haired children, who were killed later.
The refusal of Ms Thunberg and co to watch was a display of gross moral turpitude.
In her 22 years, Ms Thunberg has hoodwinked much of the world into believing she takes the moral high ground on Gaza and the Palestinian cause as well as the environment. Her stunt aboard the Madleen was self-aggrandising and vacuous, all about selfies and serving the cause of the perpetrators of the October 7 massacre, not about bringing food aid to starving Gazans. Those aboard the Madleen were being kidnapped, she bleated, as the Israelis took the ship in tow. She had cynically prerecorded a video telling of her horror about being kidnapped – without mentioning the fate of the real kidnap victims, the 251 hostages taken by Hamas.
Israel, which handled the matter adroitly will survive Ms Thunberg’s stunt. She was deported on Tuesday. In shamelessly allowing herself to be used as a pawn by Hamas and other extremists, and especially in refusing to watch the video, she has destroyed whatever claims to integrity she may have once had.
++++++
Thunberg and her activists turning their backs on humanity
The Australian | Letters | 11 June 2025
When Greta Thunberg and her motley crew refused to watch the film of the October 7 massacre, they refused to hear the anguished screams and to witness the barbaric torture and slaughter of Israelis who gladly would have welcomed them into their homes and danced with them at the Nova music festival (“Greta rides high on tide of narcissism”, 10/6).
They have displayed to the world their preference for ignorance and notoriety over knowledge and humanity. Those who died and those who remain in painful captivity deserve better than the hate-filled, self-righteous virtue signalling of these misguided activists.
Susan Kalus, Windsor, Vic
Greta Thunberg is obviously suffering from relevance deprivation syndrome. If only the media would stop providing her with oxygen we could all be spared from watching her selfie nonsense. We are also suffering from her ridiculous behaviour.
Robyn Manoy, Darling Point, NSW
Greta Thunberg didn’t succeed in delivering aid to Gaza. But her desire to do good in the world still can be achieved by turning her boat towards Yemen or Sudan. There she can spread her benevolence and draw attention to the plight of the millions who are suffering malnutrition and prolonged famine as a result of brutal conflicts.
Sandra Kane, Coogee, NSW
The sanctimonious virtue signalling and total lack of self-awareness of the self-righteous
crusaders on the Thunberg “selfie yacht” are demonstrated not only by their refusal to view a video of the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, but also by their being oblivious to the fact they are acting as that most heinous of beings – “the great white saviour” coming magnanimously to the aid of those they perceive as in need of their benevolence.
Deborah Morrison, Malvern East, Vic
++++++
Islamist made us feel very unsafe
Daily Telegraph | Shannon Tonkin | 11 June 2025
A controversial Islamic cleric being sued by Jewish leaders for racial vilification is expected to take the witnbess box today to defend allegations he made “derogatory” and “insulting” comments about Jews in religious sermons.
It comes as those who gave evidence in the Federal Court on Tuesday said they were left feeling “dehumanised” and “unsafe” after hearing anti-Semitic comments made by high-profile Sydney Muslim preacher Wissam Haddad in a series of five recorded speeches delivered just weeks after the deadly October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) co-chief executive Peter Wertheim and deputy president Robert Goot are suing the Al Madina Dawah Centre cleric in the Federal Court, with Justice Angus Stewart being asked to determine if Mr Haddad and the centre contravened the Racial Discrimination Act.
Mr Haddad denies any breach occurred, claiming the speeches primarily referenced and quoted Islamic scripture and were a genuine discussion for the purpose of religious education surrounding the unfolding Gaza war.
According to a statement of claim filed with the court, Mr Wertheim and Mr Goot allege Haddad’s commentary implied Jewish people were “mischievous”, “oppressive”, “shifty” and “arrogant” and “should be killed” by Muslims.
They allege the sermons further implied that Jewish people target Muslims by controlling the media, big business and banks and that they were “slanderous, troublemakers and schemers”.
Giving evidence in court, Mr Wertheim said: “We have previously felt safe in Australia – it’s become far less so since October 7, 2023.”
According to a statement of claim filed with the court, Mr Haddad likened Australia’s conservative politicians to dogs on a “Jewish leash” and claimed Jews were the descendants of pigs.
Mr Wertheim and Mr Goot are seeking a court order banning Mr Haddad and his centre from publishing similar content online, and for the centre to publish a “corrective notice”.
++++++
Deport in a storm for crew of ‘selfie yacht’
Daily Telegraph (Herald-Sun, Courier-Mail) | 11 June 2025
TEL AVIV: Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg and other activists have been deported from Israel after their yacht was seized by Israeli forces as they tried to deliver food and supplies to Gaza.
While Thunberg left the country on a flight to Sweden via France last night, five French activists were taken into custody after they refused to leave Israel voluntarily.
Israeli forces intercepted their yacht the Madleen, operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, in international waters on Monday and towed it to the port of Ashdod in Israel’s south. They were then transferred to Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, the foreign ministry said.
“Greta Thunberg just departed Israel on a flight to Sweden (via France),” Israel’s foreign ministry said on its official X account, along with a photo of the activist sitting on board a plane.
The five French activists who were among 12 campaigners on the Madleen were set to face an Israeli judge, French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said.
“Our consul was able to see the six French nationals arrested by the Israeli authorities last night,” Mr Barrot said on X.
“One of them has agreed to leave voluntarily and should return today. The other five will be subject to forced deportation proceedings.”
Israel’s foreign ministry dismissed the boat as the ‘selfie yacht’ and warned the activists they would face legal action if they didn’t leave the country.
“The passengers of the ‘Selfie Yacht’ arrived at Ben Gurion Airport to depart from Israel and return to their home countries,” it said on X earlier yesterday.
“Those who refuse to sign deportation documents and leave Israel will be brought before a judicial authority.”
The vessel carrying French, German, Brazilian, Turkish, Swedish, Spanish and Dutch activists had the stated aim of delivering humanitarian aid and breaking the Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory.
But the Madleen was intercepted in international waters about 185km west of the coast of Gaza at about 3am on Monday local time and was towed by the Israeli navy to Ashdod where it arrived late that night.
Thunberg and her fellow activists released dramatic pre-recorded videos claiming they had been kidnapped by the Israel forces and calling on their governments to secure their release.
But Thunberg’s demand was rejected by Stockholm, which effectively said it was her choice to travel to Gaza.
“A great responsibility rests on those who choose to travel contrary to the advice given to a place,” Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said.
“It is quite dangerous to run a campaign that means that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ consular hotline is called down.
“The consequence is that Swedes in need abroad have to wait in line for far too long.
“If she needs consular support, we will do everything we can, just as we do with all Swedish citizens.”
Israel is facing mounting pressure to allow more aid into Gaza to alleviate widespread shortages of food and basic supplies.
In a post on X, the Israeli foreign ministry said: “While Greta and others attempted to stage a media provocation whose sole purpose was to gain publicity – and which included less than a single truckload of aid – more than 1,200 aid trucks have entered Gaza from Israel within the past two weeks … there are ways to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip – they do not involve Instagram selfies.”
++++++
Greta’s getting attention
Daily Telegraph | Letters | 11 June 2025
Attention seeker Greta Thunberg like many protesters these days, seems more interested in just protesting about issues than actually offering any realistic alternatives (“Gaza Greta all at sea”, DT, 10/6).
The first point here is that Thunberg was on a single boat with other activists supposedly carrying aid supplies to Gaza.
One single boat which would barely have contained enough aid to make an impact.
Like any country they would not have been able to even enter Israel without a visa and I seriously doubt Israel would grant visas to activists who obviously support the enemy they are fighting against.
Also, even if they had been granted visas, who among these activists was going to transport the aid into Gaza and ensure it actually went to the Palestinian citizens and not hijacked by Hamas?
No, I suspect Thunberg and her fellow activists knew Israel would prevent their entry and did this as an attention seeking exercise which ultimately achieves nothing.
Why isn’t Greta campaigning to have Hamas release the remaining hostages? These activists seem to have forgotten who started this war.
B Thompson, Cowra
++++++
Greta’s lost cause
Herald-Sun | Text Talk | 11 June 2025
Activist Greta Thunberg’s intercepted voyage to Gaza wasn’t brave, it was dangerously naive (“Gaza Greta all at sea”, HS, 10/6).
She called it a “kidnapping” after the Israeli Navy stopped her boat, yet smiled as she was handed a sandwich.
Real hostages don’t get photo ops.
She claimed to bring aid to Gazans, but seemed unaware – or indifferent – who she was really helping.
If Thunberg had made it to Gaza, she wouldn’t have been hailed as a saviour.
As a Western woman, she might not have made it out at all.
Activism without awareness isn’t courage, it’s suicide dressed as solidarity.
Shane Shmuel, Elsternwick
++++++
Major progress in talks to free hostages: Israeli PM
Canberra Times / AAP | 11 June 2025
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8988995/major-progress-in-talks-to-free-hostages-israeli-pm/
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says there had been “significant progress” in efforts to secure the release of the remaining hostages in the Gaza Strip but that it is “too soon” to raise hopes that a deal would be reached.
Despite efforts by the United States, Egypt and Qatar to restore a ceasefire in the enclave, neither Israel nor Hamas has shown willingness to back down on core demands, with each side blaming the other for the failure to reach a deal.
Netanyahu, who has come under pressure from within his coalition to continue the war and block humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip, said in a video statement shared by his office that there had been progress but did not provide details.
A source familiar with the negotiations said that the United States had been giving Hamas more assurances, in the form of steps that would lead to an end to the war but said it was US officials who were optimistic, not Israeli ones.
The source said there was pressure from the US to have a deal done as soon as possible.
The White House National Security Council and representatives for US envoy Steve Witkoff, who is leading US efforts in the ceasefire talks, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Neither did Hamas representatives.
Israel’s leadership has said that it would wage war until the remaining 55 hostages held in the Gaza Strip are freed and when Hamas, whose October 2023 attack sparked the war, has been dismantled.
Hamas, which has ruled the enclave since 2007, has said it would no longer govern after the war if a Palestinian non-partisan technocratic committee took over but it has refused to disarm.
The US has proposed a 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Israel said it would abide by the terms but Hamas has sought amendments.
The militants have said that they would release all hostages in exchange for a permanent end to the war.
The war in the Gaza Strip has raged since Hamas-led militants killed 1200 people in Israel in the October 2023 attack and took 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel responded with a military campaign that has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
++++++
Thunberg says she was kidnapped in international waters
Canberra Times / AAP | 11 June 2025
Greta Thunberg has accused Israel of kidnapping her and her fellow pro-Palestinian activists in international waters, saying she declined to sign a document stating she entered the country illegally prior to being deported.
Speaking in the arrivals section of Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport after being deported from Israel, the Swedish activist said she and her team had broken no laws, and called for the immediate release of the activists still in Israel.
“I was very clear in my testimony that we were kidnapped on international waters and brought against our own will into Israel,” she said.
She laughed off criticism from US President Donald Trump, who had described her as an angry person, saying: “I think the world needs a lot more young angry women to be honest, especially with everything going on right now.”
Thunberg, 22, arrived in Paris a day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces boarded the charity vessel as it neared the Gaza Strip early on Monday, trying to break through a years-old naval blockade of the coastal enclave, and seized the 12-strong crew including Thunberg.
Thunberg denied her mission to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip by breaking through the naval blockade was a PR stunt, saying a previous effort in a larger boat was ended after the vessel was bombed.
She said she was now in desperate need of a shower and sleep.
She admitted it was unclear where she would be heading next, telling reporters it could be Sweden.
++++++
US ambassador to Israel says US no longer pursuing goal of independent Palestinian state
Mike Huckabee suggested any future Palestinian state should be carved out of ‘a Muslim country’
The Guardian | Joseph Gedeon | 11 June 2025
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/10/mike-huckabee-independent-palestinian-state
Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, has said that the US is no longer pursuing the goal of an independent Palestinian state, marking what analysts describe as the most explicit abandonment yet of a cornerstone of US Middle East diplomacy.
Asked during an interview with Bloomberg News if a Palestinian state remains a goal of US policy, he replied: “I don’t think so.”
The former Arkansas governor chosen by Donald Trump as his envoy to Israel went further by suggesting that any future Palestinian entity could be carved out of “a Muslim country” rather than requiring Israel to cede territory.
“Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,” Huckabee was quoted as saying. Those probably won’t happen “in our lifetime”, he told the news agency.
When pressed on Palestinian aspirations in the West Bank, where 3 million Palestinians live under Israeli occupation, Huckabee employed Israeli government terminology, asking: “Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?”
Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of US Middle East policy, and he has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term.
The state department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Middle East analysts said the comments made explicit a shift that has been broadly expected.
“This is not at all surprising given what we’ve seen in the last four-plus months, including the administration’s open support for expelling the population of Gaza, the legitimization of Israeli settlement and annexation policies,” said Khaled Elgindy, a scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and former adviser to Palestinian negotiators.
“This is an administration that is committed to Palestinian erasure, both physical and political,” Elgindy said. “The signs were there even in the first Trump term, which nominally supported a Palestinian ‘state’ that was shorn of all sovereignty and under permanent Israeli control. At least now they’ve abandoned the pretense.”
Yousef Munayyer, head of Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington DC, said Huckabee was merely articulating what US policy has long demonstrated in practice. “Mike Huckabee is saying out loud what US actions have been saying for decades and across different administrations,” he said. “Whatever commitments have been made in statements about a Palestinian state over time, US policy has never matched those stated commitments and only undercut them.”
The ambassador’s position has deep roots in his evangelical Christian beliefs and longstanding support for Israeli settlement expansion. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Huckabee said: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian.” In a 2017 visit to the occupied West Bank, he rejected the concept of Israeli occupation entirely.
“I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria,” said Huckabee at the time. “There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
What distinguishes Huckabee, Munayyer argued, has been his willingness to be explicit about objectives that previous officials had kept veiled. “What makes Huckabee unique is that he is shameless enough to admit out loud the goal of erasing the Palestinian people.”
The analysts add that Huckabee’s explicit rejection of Palestinian statehood, which comes as the war in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced most of the territory’s more than 2 million residents, would also create diplomatic complications for US allies.
“This will put European and Arab states in a bind, since they are still strongly committed to two states but have always deferred to Washington,” Elgindy said.
Hours after Huckabee’s comments were reported, the US imposed sanctions on a leading Palestinian human rights organization, Addameer, as well as five charity groups in the Middle East and Europe, claiming that they support Palestinian militants.
The US treasury department alleged that Addameer, which provides legal services to Palestinians detained by Israel or the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, “has long supported and is affiliated” with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a militant group classified as a terrorist organization by the US and EU.
Israel raided the West Bank offices of Addameer and other groups in 2022 over their alleged PFLP links. The United Nations condemned that raid at the time, saying that Israeli authorities had not presented to the UN any credible evidence to justify their declarations.
The Guardian later reported that a classified CIA report showed the agency had been unable to find any evidence to support Israel’s description of the group as a “terrorist organization”.
++++++
Israeli troops kill 17, say Gaza officials, as UN experts decry ‘obliteration’ of education
Palestinians reportedly killed while trying to reach food sites, while Israel accused of war crime in targeting schools
The Guardian | Emma Graham-Harrison | 11 June 2025
Israeli troops killed at least 17 Palestinians trying to reach food distribution sites on Tuesday, health authorities in Gaza said, as UN experts accused Israel’s military of committing war crimes including the “obliteration” of Gaza’s education system.
More than 130 people have been shot dead over the past two weeks in a series of brutally repetitive attacks on desperate crowds trying to access food handouts. Hundreds of others have been injured.
After 11 weeks of total siege and a continuing blockade, many in Gaza are so hungry they are still risking their lives to walk to centres run by the secretive US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the hope of getting some supplies.
The most vulnerable, including the sick, elderly people and those weakest from hunger, cannot even attempt the dangerous journey.
“This system does not intend to address hunger,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said in a post on social media.
“Aid deliveries & distribution must be at scale & safe. In Gaza, this can be done only through the United Nations including Unrwa. We have the expertise, the knowledge and community trust.”
Israel has attempted to shift most food distribution away from humanitarian organisations including UN agencies to GHF, a logistics startup that has never worked in a conflict zone at scale.
GHF hands out food at sites secured by armed guards and under the protection of the Israeli military. Shootings have targeted people travelling to the centres, not inside them or in their immediate vicinity.
The killings on Tuesday came hours before GHF began operations, and outside its site, the foundation said in a statement. It has asked the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to “do more” to keep people safe and suggested Palestinians hoping to get food without being shot dead should check social media for safety tips.
“It is vital that aid seekers stay on the dedicated passage and closely follow instructions from our Facebook posts,” the GHF statement said. The spokesperson did not respond to a question about how Gaza’s many people who no longer have regular access to electricity or internet connections should seek safety updates.
The Israeli military said it was aware of reports of injuries on Tuesday morning after troops fired “warning shots” towards “suspects” in the Wadi Gaza area whom its troops deemed a threat. “The warning shots were fired hundreds of metres from the aid distribution site,” a spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the numbers of casualties reported in Gaza did not “align” with information on injuries from an initial IDF inquiry.
The 17 deaths on Tuesday morning brought to 144 the total number of Palestinians who local health authorities say have been killed trying to get food from GHF centres since they first opened.
Hours after that attack Israeli authorities deported Greta Thunberg and other activists who had attempted to sail to the territory on the Madleen yacht with food and medical aid.
All rejected the claim that they had entered Israel illegally, because Israeli forces seized the boat in international waters then brought them to an Israeli port by force.
In an apparent response to the huge amount of publicity generated by the Madleen even before it set sail, Israel’s foreign ministry on Monday denounced the crew as “celebrities” on a “selfie yacht”.
Although they were never expected to reach Gaza, whose shores are guarded by Israel’s navy, the ship intensified international focus on hunger in Gaza.
Israel has been under heavy pressure over hunger in Gaza, with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announcing that he had lifted the siege last month after warnings from longstanding allies that the “starvation crisis” there was damaging Israel’s international standing.
However, his government has said most food supplies allowed into the territory should go through the GHF.
The UN has been able to bring only limited supplies of flour into Gaza since Israel lifted the total siege three weeks ago, and most of that had been taken by starving Palestinians or looted by armed gangs before the UN could distribute it, the deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Monday.
Israel’s broader military campaign has made education impossible in Gaza, through damage and destruction to more than 90% of school and university buildings, according to a report from the UN’s independent commission of inquiry into the occupied Palestinian territories.
More than 658,000 children in Gaza have been prevented from attending school since the war began. Israeli forces have also destroyed more than half of all religious and cultural sites in Gaza, including archaeological sites, a museum and the Great Omari mosque.
These attacks were part of a “widespread and relentless assault” on the Palestinian people in which Israel’s military had committed war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination, the report found.
“We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, the chair of the commission.
“Israel’s targeting of the educational, cultural and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm the present generations and generations to come, hindering their right to self-determination.”
++++++
UK, Australia and Canada sanction two far-right Israeli ministers for inciting West Bank violence
New Zealand and Norway also impose measures on Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich
The Guardian | Patrick Wintour | 11 June 2025
The UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway have placed sanctions on two Israeli government ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, largely for inciting violence against Palestinians in their campaign to gain control of new settlements in the West Bank.
Ben-Gvir, the security minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, and Smotrich, the finance minister, will face travel bans and have any assets in the five countries frozen. It was stressed that they were being sanctioned in their personal capacity, placing no restrictions on the ministries they lead. Netanyahu has promised to retaliate.
The move was quickly condemned by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who called for the sanctions to be lifted and said the US stood “shoulder to shoulder” with Israel.
“These sanctions do not advance US-led efforts to achieve a ceasefire, bring all hostages home, and end the war,” Rubio wrote, adding: “We remind our partners not to forget who the real enemy is.”
In a carefully prepared move, for which Israel had little advance notice, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, along with the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway, announced the sanctions in a joint statement: “We are steadfastly committed to the two-state solution and will continue to work with our partners towards its implementation.
“It is the only way to guarantee security and dignity for Israelis and Palestinians and ensure long-term stability in the region, but it is imperilled by extremist settler violence and settlement expansion.
“Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights. These actions are not acceptable. This is why we have taken action now – to hold those responsible to account.
“We will strive to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the immediate release of the remaining hostages by Hamas, which can have no future role in the governance of Gaza, a surge in aid and a path to a two-state solution.
“Today’s measures focus on the West Bank, but of course this cannot be seen in isolation from the catastrophe in Gaza. We continue to be appalled by the immense suffering of civilians, including the denial of essential aid. There must be no unlawful transfer of Palestinians from Gaza or within the West Bank, nor any reduction in the territory of the Gaza Strip.”
The previous UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, said he had planned to take the move against the two ministers last summer, but held back when he was told the decision was too political to take during an election campaign.
By building an alliance of five countries, the UK may hope to protect itself from being the sole subject of Israeli and US anger. It may also be intended to stress Israel’s growing international isolation, but that will not disturb Israel as long as it has the protection of the White House.
The EU requires unanimity among its 27 states to take parallel action, and would face resistance from Hungary. It is instead looking at possible trade restrictions that only require a qualified majority of EU states to approve them. Pressure has been building for concrete action in Canada, Norway and Australia.
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, described the UK decision as unacceptable and said it was “outrageous that elected representatives and members of the government are subjected to these kind of measures”.
Smotrich said: “Britain has already tried once to prevent us from settling the cradle of our homeland, and we will not allow it to do so again.”
Ben-Gvir said: “We passed Pharaoh, we will also pass Starmer’s wall.”
The former defence minister Benny Gantz said: “I vehemently disagree with ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir on a wide range of issues – but the imposition of British sanctions on ministers in the one and only democracy in the Middle East, the state of Israel, is a profound moral mistake and sends a dangerous message to terrorists.”
The Foreign Office said the sanctions were primarily for the men’s incitement of violence against Palestinian civilians, and that ministers had repeatedly made clear to the Netanyahu government in public and private that Israel must cease expansion of illegal settlements, which undermine a future Palestinian state, clamp down on settler violence and condemn inflammatory and extremist statements from both individuals.
Lammy said: “These two individuals have been inciting violence against Palestinian people for months and months and months.”
Smotrich has approved the expansion of West Bank settlements and campaigned against humanitarian aid in Gaza, saying in May that he would allow “not even a grain of wheat” to enter the war zone.
He said on 6 May that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to … the south to a humanitarian zone without Hamas or terrorism, and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries”.
In remarks condemned by Germany, one of Israel’s closest allies, he said last year that the potential deaths of 2 million Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza Strip from hunger may be justifiable.
“We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned,” he told a conference hosted by the Israel Hayom newspaper.
Ben-Gvir stormed the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on 26 May and has called for the Muslim world’s third-holiest site to be replaced with a synagogue. He has also called for the voluntary departure of Palestinian refugees from Gaza.
Lammy described Smotrich’s comments as monstrous and repellant in the Commons a fortnight ago, but he held back from placing sanctions on the two men. He imposed sanctions on a small group of settlers and announced there would be no further talks on an expanded trade deal with Israel.
The former Conservative Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell said he fully understood why the government had imposed the sanctions. The Labour chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Emily Thornberry, welcomed the move, but said it must not be a substitute for any plans to recognise a Palestinian state.
Labour Friends of Israel said: “By their words and deeds, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s actions in government have given succour to those who perpetrate disgraceful and utterly unacceptable violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.”
++++++
ISRAEL-PALESTINE MEDIA REPORT
11.6.25
Australia, UK sanction Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich
ABC | Matthew Doran & Tom Crowley | 11 June 2025
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-11/australia-to-sanction-two-israeli-ministers/105401564
- Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Norway and the United Kingdom have announced sanctions against far-right Israeli government ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
- The pair will face a travel ban and their assets will be frozen.
- The United States, Mr Ben-Gvir and Mr Smotrich have condemned the decision.
Australia has issued sanctions against two of the most controversial members of Israel’s government, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, accusing the men of inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
In a joint action by the Australian, British, Canadian, New Zealand and Norwegian governments, which has drawn condemnation from the governments of the US and Israel, the pair will face travel bans and have their assets frozen.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the men had “incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights”.
“Extremist rhetoric advocating the forced displacement of Palestinians and the creation of new Israeli settlements is appalling and dangerous,” she said in a joint statement with her foreign colleagues.
“These actions are not acceptable. We have engaged the Israeli Government on this issue extensively, yet violent perpetrators continue to act with encouragement and impunity.”
Mr Ben-Gvir serves as national security minister in Israeli Prime Minister’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, while Mr Smotrich is the finance minister.
Senator Wong said the sanctions were not evidence Australia was deviating from its support for Israel’s security in the wake of Hamas’ deadly attacks on October 7, 2023.
“Today’s measures are targeted towards individuals who in our view undermine Israel’s own security and its standing in the world,” she said.
“We continue to want a strong friendship with the people of Israel based on our shared ties, values and commitment to their security and future.”
The minister also noted the sanctions were focused on Mr Ben-Gvir and Mr Smotrich’s conduct with regards to the West Bank, but argued the measures could not be seen “in isolation from the catastrophe in Gaza”.
“We continue to be appalled by the immense suffering of civilians, including the denial of essential aid,” Senator Wong said.
“There must be no unlawful transfer of Palestinians from Gaza or within the West Bank, nor any reduction in the territory of the Gaza Strip.”
‘Outrageous’
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the Israeli government had been informed about a “UK decision to include two of our ministers on the British sanctions list”.
“It is outrageous that elected representatives and members of the government are subjected to this kind of measures,” he said.
“I discussed it earlier today with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and we will hold a special government meeting early next week to decide on our response to this unacceptable decision.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the sanctions, saying they “do not advance US-led efforts to achieve a ceasefire, bring all hostages home, and end the war.
“We reject any notion of equivalence: Hamas is a terrorist organisation that committed unspeakable atrocities … We remind our partners not to forget who the real enemy is.”
Senator Wong told the ABC’s Radio National Breakfast she could not confirm whether the US had been notified of the decision, saying only the government had “engaged with others as appropriate”.
“There are occasions on which in our alliance [with the US] we have had differences of views and differences of approach, but obviously there remains a great deal of strategic alignment across many domains,” she said.
Coalition frontbencher Dan Tehan did not directly criticise the government’s decision but told Radio National Breakfast the government needed to explain why it had imposed sanctions given the US position.
“We all want peace, but if the people leading the discussions trying to get peace, the US, are saying this is likely to be unhelpful, why has the Australian government done this? They’re the questions that the government needs to answer, and hopefully they’ll be very clear,” he said.
Ben-Gvir and Smotrich hit back
The pair of Israeli ministers are two of the most outspoken far-right politicians calling for the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, which the International Court of Justice ruled were unlawful in 2024.
Late last month, the Israeli government announced plans to establish 22 new settlements in the West Bank, and legalise some which had already been built without government approval.
The pair have also agitated for continuing fighting in Gaza and the return of Jewish settlements in the strip.
Mr Smotrich has said he would allow “not even a grain of wheat” to enter Gaza, adding that the strip would be “entirely destroyed” during the war.
Mr Ben-Gvir has called for the Palestinian population to be pushed out of Gaza, saying “we must encourage emigration”.
He has also repeatedly fuelled tensions in Jerusalem’s Old City by insisting Jewish people can pray on the Temple Mount, something reserved solely for Muslim worship, and the replacement of the Al-Aqsa mosque with a synagogue.
The national security minister also has a number of criminal convictions, including incitement of racism and supporting a terrorist organisation.
A fortnight ago, the men joined nationalist Israelis marching through the Old City on Jerusalem Day, where some of the participants chanted slogans such as “death to Arabs” and “may your village burn”.
The sanctions were first reported by British newspaper The Times, prompting early responses from Mr Ben-Gvir and Mr Smotrich directed at the UK government.
“We passed Pharaoh, we will also pass Starmer’s wall,” Mr Ben-Gvir said.
“I will continue to work for the State of Israel and the people of Israel without fear or intimidation.”
Mr Smotrich said he viewed the decision with contempt.
“Britain has already tried once to prevent us from settling the cradle of our homeland, and we cannot do it again,” he said.
“We are determined God willing to continue building.”
The UK has sharpened its criticism of Israel in recent weeks, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer foreshadowed sanctions against Israel in a joint statement with Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Israel’s humanitarian blockade of Gaza has been roundly criticised by leaders, with Mr Macron labelling it as “shameful”.
Senator Wong told the ABC’s News Breakfast the “statement” made by several countries acting together to impose sanctions was “as important as the effect of the sanctions”.
“And I think the fact that the countries who have imposed these sanctions are countries who have historical relationships with the state of Israel does demonstrate the level of concern that we have about what is occurring.”
++++++
Federal politics live: US condemns Australia’s joint sanctions on Israeli ministers
ABC | Courtney Gould | 11 June 2025
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-11/federal-politics-live-june-11/105400110
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has condemned Australia’s sanctions against two far-right Israeli government ministers.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced on Wednesday morning Australia would join New Zealand, Canada, Norway and the United Kingdom in sanctioning Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
++++++
Israel deports Greta Thunberg after boarding Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla ship
ABC / Reuters | 10 June 2025
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-10/greta-thunberg-boards-flight-to-sweden/105400928
- Swedish activist Greta Thunberg is en route to Sweden after being deported from Israel.
- The 22-year-old and other crew members were detained aboard a charity boat as it neared Gaza on Monday.
- The activists were carrying humanitarian aid, including rice and baby formula, and said they wanted to raise international awareness about the crisis in Gaza, which has been devastated by months of war.
Israel has deported Swedish activist Greta Thunberg after she was detained on a charity boat as it neared Gaza, the Israeli foreign ministry said.
Thunberg was on a flight to France, where she would continue her journey to her home country Sweden, the ministry said on Tuesday.
She usually refuses to fly because of the carbon emissions of the airline industry.
The 22-year-old and a group of activists were taken to Tel Aviv airport ahead of their deportation, after the Israeli navy prevented them from sailing to Gaza on Monday.
Israeli forces boarded the Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s yacht, the Madleen, and seized 12 crew members, including campaigner Thunberg.
Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement.
They will be held in a detention centre ahead of a court hearing.
It was not immediately clear when that would happen.
“Those who refuse to sign deportation documents and leave Israel will be brought before a judicial authority, in accordance with Israeli law, to authorise their deportation.”
The activists had been carrying a small cargo of humanitarian aid, including rice and baby formula, and said they wanted to raise international awareness about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which has been devastated by months of war.
Israel dismissed the voyage as a pro-Hamas publicity stunt.
“The tiny amount of aid that was on the yacht and not consumed by the ‘celebrities’ will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels,” the Foreign Ministry said.
Thunberg accused Israel of kidnapping her in international waters, in a video that was recorded ahead of the Israeli navy action.
“I urge all my friends, family and comrades to put pressure on the Swedish government to release me and the others as soon as possible,” she said.
Greta Thunberg releases a pre-recorded statement saying the Freedom Flotilla ship the Madleen has been intercepted.
Israel has imposed a naval blockade on the coastal enclave since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007.
Israel said it aims to stop weapons from reaching Hamas.
The blockade has remained in place through conflicts including the present war, which began when Hamas-led militants rampaged through southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages by Israeli tallies.
Israel’s offensive against Hamas has since killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in Hamas-run Gaza.
In March, Israel imposed a total blockade of all supplies reaching Gaza, which the United Nations said was driving the population to the brink of famine.
Over the past two weeks, Israel has allowed in limited food supplies to be distributed by a new Israeli-backed group, a step Israel said was necessary to prevent Hamas from diverting aid.
++++++
‘Sucker for a good cause’ joins uni fray
The Age| CBD | 11 June 2025
The University of Melbourne’s newish vice chancellor, Emma Johnston, made a little history when she punted two pro Palestine protesters from the august institution after the students and about 16 of their mates stormed and occupied the office of Jewish academic Steven Prawer last year. But as they say in the classics, this ain’t over yet.
The two students – another two were suspended over their October 2024 stunt – were given 30 days to appeal and have already attracted some legal heavyweights. But there’s just one teensy-tiny issue.
Greg Barns, no stranger to these matters, having acted as an adviser to Wikileaks ex-con Julian Assange, and in a lengthy list of right-on causes, has teamed-up with Victorian criminal law legend and former magistrate Rob Stary to add some heft to the students’ crusade.
Stary’s list of former clients is, well, quite something. We’ve got “Jihad” Jack Thomas, the first Australian to be convicted under the post 9/11 terrorism laws, Assange – him again – and even Melbourne gangland figures Tony Mokbel and the late Carl Williams.
The high-profile pair are joined by fellow bar-table veteran Leonard Hartnett, and pro Palestine legal sister act Bernadette and Ran Zaydan, who established their Watermelon Defence Fund, which, well, the name says it all.
Stary said he got involved after the other lawyers approached him. “Always a sucker for a good cause,” he told CBD. And that teensy-tiny issue? Uni rules state that the students have no right of representation in the appeals process, so their near-basketball squad of legal advisers are, at this stage any way, just that.
When CBD approached, the university said again that it wasn’t going to provide details on the confidential disciplinary matters, and Prawer declined to comment.
++++++
Israel deports Thunberg after ship seizure
The Age (& Sydney Morning Herald) / AP, Reuters | Yesica Fisch | 11 June 2025
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the country’s foreign ministry said, a day after the Gaza-bound ship she was on was seized by the Israeli military.
The 22-year-old left on a f light to France and was then headed to her home country of Sweden, the ministry said on X. It posted a photo of Thunberg, who shuns air travel, seated on a plane.
Thunberg was one of 12 passengers on board the Madleen, a boat carrying a small cargo of aid for people in war-torn Gaza.
Israeli naval forces seized the boat early on Monday about 200 kilometres off Gaza’s coast, according to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, the group that organised the journey. The boat, ac companied by Israel’s navy, ar rived in the Israeli port of Ashdod on Monday evening, Israel’s foreign ministry said.
Adalah, a legal rights group in Israel representing Thunberg and the other activists, said Thunberg, two other activists and a journalist had agreed to be deported from Israel. Eight activists refused deportation, were being held in detention and their case was set to be heard by Israeli authorities, it said.
The activists left Sicily a week ago to protest against Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip and its restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid. Both have put the territory of about 2.3 million Palestinians at risk of famine.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he had ordered the military on Sunday to pre vent the boat from reaching Gaza, calling the mission a propaganda effort in support of Hamas.
He said he ordered the activists to be shown a video of the atrocities committed during the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, so they could “see exactly who the Hamas terrorist organisation they came to support and for whom their work is, what atrocities they committed against women, the elderly, and children, and against whom Israel is fighting to defend itself”, London’s Telegraph reported.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition said the activists were “kidnapped by Israeli forces” while trying to deliver desperately needed food, baby formula and medical supplies.
“If you see this video, we have been intercepted and kidnapped in international waters by Israeli occupational forces or forces that support Israel,” Thunberg said in a video released by the group, filmed before the vessel was captured.
“I urge all my friends, family and comrades to put pressure on the Swedish government to release me and the others as soon as possible.”
US President Donald Trump dismissed the statement: “I think Israel has enough problems without kidnapping Greta Thunberg,” he said. “She’s a young, angry person … I think she has to go to an anger management class.” He made a simi lar remark about the then 16 year-old activist in 2019.
Israel has dismissed the aid ship as a stunt, with its foreign ministry labelling the boat “the selfie yacht”. Officials said it carried what amounted to less than a truckload of aid.
“This wasn’t humanitarian aid. It’s Instagram activism,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said.
Israel said the aid on board would be sent to Gaza through established channels and circulated footage of what appeared to be Israeli military personnel offering sandwiches and water to the activists, who were wearing life vests.
After an 11-week total blockade aimed at pressuring Hamas, Israel started allowing some basic aid into Gaza last month, but humanitarian workers and experts say it is not enough and have warned of famine unless the blockade is lifted and Israel ends its military offensive.
Dozens of people have died in shootings over the past two weeks while trying to get aid from new centres run by a controversial new aid group backed by the US and Israel, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The United Nations and other aid groups have refused to work with the group, citing humanitarian concerns.
An attempt by Freedom Flotilla last month to reach Gaza by sea failed after another of its vessels was attacked by two drones while sailing in international waters off Malta, organisers said, blaming Israel for the attack.
Rima Hassan, a member of the European Parliament who is of Palestinian descent, was among six French citizens aboard. French President Emmanuel Macron earlier asked Israel to allow them to return to France as soon as possible.
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said the crew and passengers were aware of the risks and that her ministry had advised against travel to Gaza for a decade, Swedish news agency TT reported.
Israel and Egypt have imposed varying degrees of a blockade on Gaza since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.
Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent Hamas from importing arms, while critics say it amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s Palestinian population.
++++++
Eye on the ICC
The Age | Letters | 11 June 2025
Eye on the ICC
Retired Supreme Court judge Lex Lasry asks why the International Criminal Court’s actions regarding Israel and the US are “illegitimate” (“Trump is dismantling international jus tice, rule of law”, 10/6). Neither country signed the Rome Statute setting up the court, so it has no jurisdiction over them. Israel knew, with the ICC part of the same jaundiced UN system that has in recent years condemned Israel more than every other country combined, it had no chance of fair treatment, as subsequent events have proven.
The court also breached its own legislation, which states it must only prosecute officials from countries without an independent justice system incapable of doing so. This is clearly not so with Israel. The prosecutor heard the biased case against Israel from those in Gaza, including grossly under stated aid figures subsequently disavowed by the UN’s main famine-monitoring agency, but then applied for the warrant without hearing Israel’s side, despite having undertaken to do so.
All of these issues should gravely concern anyone who cares about the rule of law.
Shane Shmuel, Elsternwick
Pressure on Hamas
The suggestion by your correspondent to “slow supply of arms” to Israel (Letters, 10/6) has some errors. The “destruction of Palestine” is not occurring. Some may argue that Gaza’s infrastructure has been badly damaged. But the Israeli goal is to get the hostages back and remove the military arm of Hamas. Most of the world supports both these endeavours. Sure the footage in the media is terrible. But the innocent Gazan deaths are being caused by Hamas and its actions and its promise to continue its terrorist actions. This correspondent does not refer to the hostages and the fact that Hamas does not permit Red Cross to visit the hostages. I would have thought the best way to stop the war is that hostages are to be returned and Hamas to stop fighting and causing the killing of innocent Gazans. The pressure should be on Hamas.
Ian Fayman, Malvern East
++++++
Activists like Thunberg care about fame not the facts
The Age (& Sydney Morning Herald) | Suzanne Moore | 11 June 2025
As yet, Greta Thunberg has not had her money shot. In terms of Insta-activism, her seafaring jaunt to deliver aid to Gaza has been farcical. It was always go ing to be.
I totally support more aid going into Gaza. I want us to stop selling arms to Israel. While I support the right of Israel to exist, I do not support its right to keep on killing the people of Gaza.
But the last thing the Israel Gaza conflict needs is more martyrs. It also doesn’t need hypocrites – particularly ones who also claim to champion women’s rights. The irony is that Greta, with her dissenting views and freedom to express them, would not be tolerated by Hamas.
When it comes to the moral high road, the likes of Thunberg seek to occupy ALL of it, no matter how muddled the thinking.
Pretending you can sail into a war zone and “help” is a gran diose delusion. But, of course, Greta and her “aid boat” were largely a symbolic protest. What matters above all are the images of the selfie-yacht and the attention they can garner. Being
boarded and detained (or, as she puts it, “kidnapped”) by Israeli forces gave her exactly what she had hoped for to kick against.
This image will forever be compared with the horror show of the actual kidnapping of hostages by Hamas and other militant groups. There are girls younger than Greta, with bloodied pants, their Achilles tendons cut; a mother clutching her red-haired children whom we now know are dead; a terrified old lady being abducted. In 2023, the IDF showed Hamas body cam footage collected after the Nova festival attack to the press in London. Most of the viewers were in tears but certain activist “journalists” came out saying there was no proof of women being raped as they had not been shown that.
This is what happens when a young girl with a penchant for protest becomes too feted. She addressed national parliaments and Davos as a climate activist and was interviewed everywhere. Unsurprisingly, then, her symbolic power was soon com modified as she appeared at protest after protest, morphing effortlessly from climate change activism to Palestinian solidarity.
Political activism is now algorithmic. Hey, if you liked that cause, then try this one.
The “left” these days often seems little more than a collection of disparate causes: eco stuff, trans rights and Free Palestine. The contradictions between these beliefs are underplayed as they become bundled together as an omnicause. The omnicause can incorporate everything from animal rights to emptying jails. Forget the single issues that require specific campaigning: the omni cause is a moronic vacuum where analysis goes to die.
There may well be links between climate change and war. Many say drought was a factor in the unrest that led to the Syrian civil war.
The omnicause, though, does not do specifics. It favours symbolic demonstrations that can go viral. These simplistic spectacles of righteousness often backfire.
What did Fossil Free Books achieve, for instance? It decided to campaign against companies that had any connection to Israel. The result was that investment firms stopped funding book festivals. How this helped either the environment or in deed the Palestinian cause is something of a mystery
Thunberg’s stunt has been similarly self-aggrandising and vacuous. The omnicause does not require logic, consistency or even coherence. It is closer to acting than activism. It depends on melodrama and a narrative of provocative images.
Thunberg may be brave and have been prepared to sacrifice herself, though for what I am not sure. But now we have seen the pictures, I am afraid that what she has sacrificed is her integrity.
The omnicause burns itself out in the end because it has no actual strategy. It simply signifies tribal loyalty. It gobbles everything up and spits out its participants, who simply move on to the next “wrong” thing.
You might think that, for Thunberg, her ship has sailed. But that does not mean she won’t clamber aboard the next one that hoves into view.
This piece first appeared in the Telegraph in the UK
++++++
Islamic preacher ‘humiliated’ Jewish community, court told
Sydney Morning Herald | Riley Walter | 11 June 2025
Speeches given by an Islamic preacher in the wake of the October 7 attacks were intended to insult, humiliate, intimidate and offend Jews and dehumanised members of the Jewish community, the Federal Court has heard.
Wissam Haddad, who refers to himself as Abu Ousayd on line, is in court over comments he made during five speeches delivered at the Al Madina Dawah Centre in Bankstown in late 2023 and subsequently published on social media.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s co-chief executive, Peter Wertheim, and its deputy president, Robert Goot, launched the legal action last October, claiming Haddad’s speeches, in which he called Jews a “vile” and “treacherous” people and referred to them as the descendants of “apes” and “pigs”, breached the Racial Discrimination Act and were antisemitic.
Wertheim and Goot have asked the Federal Court for an injunction banning Haddad and his centre from publishing similar content online, and for the court to order the publication of a “corrective notice” on the centre’s social media.
The pair filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission in March 2024, but had taken legal action after mediation was unsuccessful. They have applied for the cost of legal action to be covered, but have not sought any damages.
In his opening submissions, Peter Braham, SC, acting for Wertheim and Goot, said Haddad’s speeches were meant to intimidate Jewish people.
“It’s threatening, humiliating, and offensive,” Braham said.
In his defence, Haddad said the speeches were not directed at, and did not refer to Australian Jewish people, and were derived, in substance, from the Qur’an.
Haddad’s barrister, Andrew Boe, argued that the speeches were given to a private audience at the Al Madina Dawah Centre and intended to be viewed only by members of the Muslim community, and therefore did not amount to a breach of racial discrimination laws.
It was “objectively unlikely that any Jewish person in Australia would have come across the speeches without them being picked up and publicised separately by other media”, Boe said.
Boe said Haddad’s speeches did not amount to a breach of the act because “some people in a group have gone out of their way to expose themselves to speech which they might reasonably expect to be critical of Israel, and then become of fended by it”, comparing the viewing of the speeches to a “person with a prudish sensitivity seeking out pornography and then complaining about being offended by it”.
But Braham said Haddad’s speeches were intended to be broadcast publicly, and were recorded in front of a backdrop displaying the centre’s social media accounts.
“It was directed to people outside the room,” Braham said.
The speeches, Braham said, were uploaded to social media and “picked up by the popular press”.
Giving evidence yesterday, Wertheim said Haddad’s speeches were “dehumanising” and that members of the Jewish community in Australia had felt less safe since the October 7 at tacks in southern Israel, partly because of the use of “overly dehumanising language” towards Jews that was “quite alien, quite foreign to us”
“Making derogatory generalisation calling Jews a vile and treacherous people, calling them rats, cowards, those sort of things, in my view, are dehumanising, and I think would have been experienced by most Jews as dehumanising,” Wertheim said.
Boe said in Haddad’s case a preacher needed to “finely calibrate sermons delivered to their own religious community, in an emotional political environment”.
The “boundaries of legitimate debate cannot be set so narrowly as to exclude that which is not polite, bland, muted or balanced in its manner or content”, he said.
“It is of the essence of legitimate discussion in a free democratic society that there is room for the confronting, the challenging, even the shocking, and that space remains even in an environment such as the one that existed in November 2023,” Boe said.
“This is especially so in this case where those views were ex pressed by someone to members of their own religious and ethnic community, and not directed at the group from which some members now claim to be offended, insulted, humiliated, or intimidated by some of the content of these speeches.”
Goot said he felt “much less safe, less accepted and less welcome” since October 7.
The hearing continues today.
++++++
Thunberg’s Gaza mission was more naive than brave
Sydney Morning Herald | Letters | 11 June 2025
Greta Thunberg’s ill-fated voyage to Gaza wasn’t brave, it was dangerously naive. She called it a “kidnapping” after the Israeli Navy stopped her boat, yet smiled as she was handed a sandwich. Real hostages don’t get photo opportunities. She claimed to bring aid to Gazans, but seemed unaware, or indifferent, to whom she was really helping. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz responded by having her crew watch raw footage of the October 7 atrocities. “Let them see who they’re supporting,” he said (“Israel orders Greta Thunberg be shown October 7 video while in detention”, June 10). But if Greta wants a lesson in Gaza’s realities, she should look up Vittorio Arrigoni – an Italian activist murdered by Palestinian militants in 2011. He sailed in support of Gaza, too. They tortured and killed him for his trouble, calling Italy an “infidel state”. If Greta had made it to Gaza she wouldn’t have been hailed as a saviour. As a Western woman, she might not have made it out at all. Activism without awareness isn’t courage – it’s suicide dressed as solidarity.
Shane Shmuel, Elsternwick (Vic)
The Israeli military’s seizure of an unarmed aid vessel carrying humanitarian activists marks another chilling moment in a war that has long abandoned any pretence of morality (“Israel boards Gaza charity boat with Greta Thunberg on board”, June 10). This was not a warship nor a military convoy it was a boat carrying baby formula and medical supplies, intercepted in international waters. Israel’s justification? That the boat threatened its naval blockade – blockade that has turned Gaza into both a grave yard and a prison, cutting off not just food and medicine, but any remaining hope. This isn’t about security, it’s the systematic punishment of an entire population and a clear violation of international law.
Fernanda Trecenti, Fitzroy (Vic)
++++++
Anti-Jew speech ‘comfort’ claim
The Australian | James Dowling | 11 June 2025
Lawyers for jihadi preacher Wissam Haddad have argued his sermons were given to provide private “comfort” to Muslim congregants, despite accusations he was in active dialogue with reporters as a self-proclaimed “masjid (mosque) shock jock”.
Mr Haddad, whose first name is William but who is also known as Abu Ousayd, arrived at court on Tuesday ahead of his racial discrimination hearing, avoiding questions and surrounded by his legal team, staring down a four-day trial over allegations by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry that he breached the Racial Discrimination Act through his sermons in the wake of the Hamas October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
Mr Haddad or speakers at his Al Madina Dawah Centre have called Jewish people “descendants of pigs and monkeys”, recited parables about their killing and said people should “spit” on Israel so its citizens “would drown”.
In most cases, he has claimed he was referring to or reciting Islamic scripture. He sat in the front row of the Federal Court and did not rise or bow to judge Angus Stewart as proceedings began or were adjourned.
ECAJ co-chief executive Peter Wertheim and deputy president Robert Goot SC first launched court action against Mr Haddad and his Bankstown-based Al Madina Dawah Centre in October after a failed mediation process in the Human Rights Commission.
In a provocative video posted before the hearing Mr Haddad stated that “we are not going to come (to the trial) unarmed, we’re going to fight them with everything that we have”, followed by the image of a sword.
Peter Braham, representing Mr Wertheim and Mr Goot, said Mr Haddad’s behaviour had “the effect of normalising anti-Semitic prejudices and the expression of them, and (could) encourage acts of violence against Jewish people”.
“He makes no distinction between Jews who support Israel today and Jews who don’t. As we will see, in fact, the speeches were just … about Jews, ascribing to Jewish people certain negative characteristics, and encouraging his audience to hold those views,” he said. “The intent of the speeches was to persuade an audience that the Jewish people had certain immutable and eternal characteristics that caused them to come into conflict with Muslims.”
Andrew Boe, Mr Haddad, suggested a judgment against his client would unjustly limit freedom of speech, saying the “boundaries of legitimate debate cannot be set so narrowly as to exclude that which is not polite, bland (or) muted”.
“It cannot be … that Section 18C (of the Racial Discrimination Act) can be contravened because some people in a group have gone out of their way to expose themselves to speech which they might reasonably expect to be critical of Israel,” Mr Boe said.
“It would be analogous to a person with a prudish sensitivity seeking out pornography on the web and then complaining about being offended by it.
“Mr Haddad’s evidence will be (that) his motivation was to respond to expressions of great distress … by providing historical and religious context on those events in an attempt to provide spiritual comfort to them. That motivation is entirely consistent with the content of the speeches.”
He argued that Mr Haddad addressed only historical Jewish tribes referenced in the Koran or the state of Israel, not the global Jewish diaspora.
Mr Braham disputed this purported intention, and said Mr Haddad knowingly began a public dialogue with journalists who reported on his sermons, including citing articles by this masthead.
“Mr Haddad read these newspaper articles and, as you see in his speech, he responds to them … and he says, ‘Hey, journalists, get your microphones ready, I’ve got more’,” Mr Braham said.
He pointed to extracts from Mr Haddad’s speeches.
“Today, I’m going to be a masjid (mosque) shock jock, and I want to rub salt in the wound so on Monday they have something to report about,” Mr Haddad said in a speech played before the court.
ECAJ is seeking declarations that he contravened Section 18C, injunctions to remove the five offending sermons from the internet, and an order that the cleric refrain from publishing similar speeches in future.
Both the applicant and respondent have relied on expert witnesses to assess the speeches and sermons of Mr Haddad, with Mr Wertheim enlisting American professor of Islamic studies and theology Gabriel Reynolds, and Mr Haddad calling on Sheik Adel Ibrahim from the Greenacre Prayers Hall in western Sydney.
Mr Haddad will give evidence on Wednesday, with the expert witnesses to follow on Thursday.
Mr Boe cross-examined Mr Wertheim – who donned a kippah as he testified – but had three lines of inquiry cut short over questions of relevance. He probed whether ECAJ could purport to be democratically representative of Australian Jews and their general political consensus, and suggested Mr Wertheim sought to “speak for the Jews of Australia” in the trial, which he and his counsel denied.
“(You) formed the view that (Mr Haddad) had made racist smears, and this was before you actually saw any of the speeches,” Mr Boe said to Mr Wertheim, who agreed. However, Mr Wertheim said Mr Haddad’s rhetoric came during a remarkably precarious moment for Jewish Australians in the wake of the October 7 attacks.
“(There was) mob behaviour of a particularly racist nature, which is completely alien to our experiences as Australians. I was born in Australia, educated in Australia, worked in Australia, raised a family in Australia, and I’ve never encountered anything like this,” he said. “It was also the use of overtly dehumanising language at a lot of these demonstrations, and in your client’s (Mr Haddad’s) speeches, that was something quite new, quite alien, quite foreign to us. I don’t think that’s a view that was confined just to my organisation.”
Three lay witnesses attested to their distress at Mr Haddad’s remarks, but Mr Boe pointed out in each case they had only a partial comprehension of his sermons given they were interspersed with Arabic phrases.
++++++
Fake police letter threat to charity on Fuld speech
The Australian | Mohammad Alfares | 11 June 2025
Victoria Police is investigating a fake letter purporting to be from the state’s counter-terrorism command unit sent to organisers of Jewish charity Magen David Adom, warning them against allowing Israeli influencer Hillel Fuld to appear virtually.
The hoax letter falsely claimed that airing Mr Fuld’s speech at Thursday’s event in Melbourne would amount to “advocating terrorism” under federal law, and threatened the charity with prosecution if it proceeded with his virtual address.
Victoria Police confirmed the letter was a forgery and that no such directive was issued. It is now investigating the source of the document, which includes a fabricated signature from a non-existent officer and a counterfeit Victoria Police letterhead.
The letter, addressed to charity chief executive Glynis Lipson, cited Mr Fuld’s visa cancellation under section 116 of the Migration Act, which the federal government confirmed last week was due to national security concerns.
It ordered the organisation to remove all references to Mr Fuld, cancel plans for a virtual speech, and warn Victorian attendees he would not appear “in any form”.
Mr Fuld, known for pro-Israel activism and criticism of Palestinian groups, had planned to attend the event in person before his visa was revoked by the Department of Home Affairs. He later announced he would deliver his remarks via livestream instead.
The fake letter, dated June 9 and sent from a supposed office at Victoria Police headquarters, gave a 24-hour deadline and included a phone number and email address for a counter-terrorism command unit “Detective Inspector Sarah Kendrick” and “Superintendent Mark Holland” – people who do not exist within the force.
“Victoria Police has been informed by the commonwealth Department of Home Affairs that Mr Hillel Fuld’s visa was cancelled on security grounds under section 116 of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth),” the letter read.
“Material reviewed by federal agencies indicates that public dissemination of Mr Fuld’s views may constitute ‘advocating terrorism’ within the meaning of section 80.2A of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).
“Accordingly, Victoria Police directs that no live or recorded broadcast, webcast or video link featuring Mr Fuld be transmitted, screened or otherwise made available to any person or venue within the state of Victoria, including at the fundraising event promoted by Magen David Adom Australia for Thursday, 12 June, 2025.
“Failure to comply may expose your organisation and any associated Australian entities to investigation and potential prosecution for offences relating to the promotion or support of terrorist acts (Part 5.3, Criminal Code).
“Penalties include substantial fines and terms of imprisonment.”
It’s understood the fake letter was forwarded to Ms Lipson from a community WhatsApp group.
A Victoria Police spokesperson confirmed “there’s nobody at VicPol by either name (Mark Holland or Sarah Kendrick). Victoria Police is aware of a fraudulent letter being circulated purporting to be from members of counter-terrorism command. The source of the letter is being investigated.”
The latest controversy comes after Washington and Jerusalem voiced their concerns to the Albanese government over the visa cancellation.
Under Victorian law, anyone guilty of impersonating a police officer could face up to one year’s jail.
++++++
Thunberg’s deportation flight a final humiliation
The Australian / AFP | Jack Guez & Benoit Finck | 11 June 2025
Israel on Tuesday said Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from the country on a flight to France, after she was detained along with other activists aboard a Gaza-bound aid boat and taken to a Tel Aviv airport.
“Greta Thunberg is departing Israel on a flight to France,” Israel’s foreign ministry said on its official X account, along with photos of the activist on board a plane.
Israel used the deportation as a final humiliation of the activist, sending her via plane despite Ms Thunberg famously refusing to fly because of its impact on the environment. She hasn’t boarded a plane since 2015.
Five French activists who were also aboard the boat carrying aid bound for Gaza are set to face an Israeli judge, the French foreign minister confirmed Tuesday.
“Our consul was able to see the six French nationals arrested by the Israeli authorities last night,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on the same platform.
“One of them has agreed to leave voluntarily and should return today. The other five will be subject to forced deportation proceedings.”
Disparaging the Madleen and its crew as a “selfie-yacht”, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement: “Those who refuse to sign deportation documents and leave Israel will be brought before a judicial authority, in accordance with Israeli law, to authorise their deportation.”
The ministry said envoys from the activists’ home countries would meet them at the airport.
Earlier, Ms Thunberg and company refused to view a video showing the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz had planned for the activists to be shown the video before they left the country.
However, he said on Tuesday that when they saw the first scenes, “they refused to continue watching”.
“Greta [Thunberg] and her flotilla companions were taken into a room upon their arrival for a screening of the horror film of the October 7 massacre, and when they saw what it was about, they refused to continue watching,” Mr Katz said in a statement.
“The anti-Semitic flotilla members are turning a blind eye to the truth and have proven once again they prefer the murderers to the murdered and continue to ignore the atrocities committed by Hamas against Jewish and Israeli women, adults and children.”
Ms Thunberg and friends disembarked their boat at Israel’s Ashdod port, where it had been towed by the Israeli navy.
Asked about claims that Israel had “kidnapped” the activists as they allege, US President Donald Trump said: “I think Israel has enough problems without kidnapping Greta Thunberg.”
He went on to describe the young campaigner as a “young, angry person”.
“I think she has to go to anger management class. That’s my primary recommendation for her,” he said, adding: “I don’t know if it’s real anger.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted a picture of Ms Thunberg and Brazilian activist Thiago Avila beside an Israeli flag on the dock, and said the ship’s passengers and crew were being checked to ensure they were in good health.
“The ‘selfie-yacht’ docked at Ashdod Port a short while ago. The passengers are currently undergoing medical examinations to ensure they are in good health,” the Foreign Ministry said.
The Madleen, which the Israeli navy intercepted in what activists claim were international waters on Monday, reached the port north of Gaza about 8.45pm local time (2.45am AEST), escorted by the Israeli navy.
The activists set sail from Italy on June 1 to raise awareness of food shortages in the Gaza Strip, which the UN has called the “hungriest place on Earth”.
++++++
Aid ship organiser denies being ‘Hamas operative’
The Australian | Staff writers | 11 June 2025
A man accused in the UK and Israel of being a “Hamas operative” is one of the organisers behind Greta Thunberg’s aid ship that failed to reach Gaza this week.
Zaher Birawi, who describes himself as a “founding member” of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition that planned the voyage of the Madleen from Sicily to Gaza, has denied any links to the militant group.
Birawi, 63, a pro-Palestinian campaigner, says he has been awarded compensation over similar claims.
The Palestinian-British journalist live-streamed the launch of the Madleen before it set sail from Sicily carrying what Israel has mocked as a “tiny amount” of humanitarian aid.
On Monday, the Israeli navy boarded the Madleen as it neared Gaza, and towed it to the Israeli port of Ashdod, where Ms Thunberg and her fellow activists were detained ahead of their deportation.
In a Facebook post about the boat’s seizure, Birawi, who has not been named as being on the Madleen, wrote: “In a piracy operation in international waters and 150 nautical miles from Palestinian waters, the Israeli navy took control of the ship Madleen and abducted the allies on board. The Freedom Flag Alliance demands international intervention to ensure their safety and release.”
The UK Telegraph reports that in 2013 Birawi was named by Israel as a Hamas operative in Europe, and is the head of the Europal Forum, which Israel designated as a terrorist organisation in 2021.
The Europal Forum has strongly denied any terror links, and in 2021 Birawi received compensation after suing a financial database he said had wrongly placed him on a terrorism watch list, according to The Telegraph and the London Times.
In 2023, British Labour MP Christian Wakeford used parliamentary privilege to accuse Birawi of being one of four alleged “Hamas operatives”. He used special parliamentary protections to protect him from being sued to allege Birawi was a security risk.
“Birawi … was designated by Israel in 2013 as a senior Hamas operative in Europe … a publicly available video shows him hosting a 2019 event in London titled ‘Understanding Hamas’,” Mr Wakeford said.
Hamas has been proscribed as a terror group in the UK under the Terrorism Act 2000 since 2021. Birawi denies belonging to Hamas. In 2023, he said: “I am a law-abiding British citizen of Palestinian origin who carries out his obligations as an activist defending the national and human rights of Palestinians who survive under occupation,” the London Times reported.
Accusing Mr Wakeford of making baseless claims, he said the MP was attempting to “besmirch my character and, potentially, to rationalise any harm that may befall me or my family”.
The Sun on Sunday said that in 2023 Birawi had been photographed with Ismail Haniyeh, then Hamas’s political leader. Haniyeh was assassinated last year aged 61.
After the Madleen docked in Ashdod, Israel asked Ms Thunberg and fellow activists to view a video of the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, but Defence Minister Israel Katz said the group refused to watch the film when told what it was about.
Slamming their decision, Mr Katz said: “The anti-Semitic flotilla members are turning a blind eye to the truth and have proven once again that they prefer the murderers to the murdered and continue to ignore the atrocities committed by Hamas against Jewish and Israeli women, adults and children.”
++++++
Thunberg destroys her credibility
The Australian | Editorial | 11 June 2025
Greta Thunberg’s arrogant refusal to watch footage of Hamas’s barbaric October 7, 2023, massacre of innocent Jews at the Nova music festival says much about her and her defiant and dopey comrades aboard their ship of fools, towed into the Israeli port of Ashdod by the Israeli Navy on Monday.
Their gross anti-Semitism, combined with their pig-headed unwillingness to learn something of the truth about the worst mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, will ensure that instead of facing evidence of a terrible historic atrocity, they will continue being used as naive pawns by the terrorists.
Even Ms Thunberg’s reputation as an environmental activist appeared to go overboard. As Israeli soldiers were about to board the Madleen, she and her companions tossed their mobile phones into the ocean.
After being taken off the so-called freedom flotilla (a single ship), Ms Thunberg and her companions were taken to a room for the screening of the film and refused to watch. They turned a blind eye, as Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said, “to the truth and have proven once again that they prefer the murderers to the murdered and continue to ignore the atrocities committed by Hamas against Jewish and Israeli women, adults and children”.
Ms Thunberg and her similarly witless companions in made-in-China keffiyehs mindlessly spout propaganda for the Palestinian cause but refuse to watch the irrefutable evidence of Hamas’s evil, including girls younger than Ms Thunberg being pack-raped and killed; terrified elderly women being carted away among the 250 hostages; young people having their tendons severed; and savages seizing a young mother with her two small red-haired children, who were killed later.
The refusal of Ms Thunberg and co to watch was a display of gross moral turpitude.
In her 22 years, Ms Thunberg has hoodwinked much of the world into believing she takes the moral high ground on Gaza and the Palestinian cause as well as the environment. Her stunt aboard the Madleen was self-aggrandising and vacuous, all about selfies and serving the cause of the perpetrators of the October 7 massacre, not about bringing food aid to starving Gazans. Those aboard the Madleen were being kidnapped, she bleated, as the Israelis took the ship in tow. She had cynically prerecorded a video telling of her horror about being kidnapped – without mentioning the fate of the real kidnap victims, the 251 hostages taken by Hamas.
Israel, which handled the matter adroitly will survive Ms Thunberg’s stunt. She was deported on Tuesday. In shamelessly allowing herself to be used as a pawn by Hamas and other extremists, and especially in refusing to watch the video, she has destroyed whatever claims to integrity she may have once had.
++++++
Thunberg and her activists turning their backs on humanity
The Australian | Letters | 11 June 2025
When Greta Thunberg and her motley crew refused to watch the film of the October 7 massacre, they refused to hear the anguished screams and to witness the barbaric torture and slaughter of Israelis who gladly would have welcomed them into their homes and danced with them at the Nova music festival (“Greta rides high on tide of narcissism”, 10/6).
They have displayed to the world their preference for ignorance and notoriety over knowledge and humanity. Those who died and those who remain in painful captivity deserve better than the hate-filled, self-righteous virtue signalling of these misguided activists.
Susan Kalus, Windsor, Vic
Greta Thunberg is obviously suffering from relevance deprivation syndrome. If only the media would stop providing her with oxygen we could all be spared from watching her selfie nonsense. We are also suffering from her ridiculous behaviour.
Robyn Manoy, Darling Point, NSW
Greta Thunberg didn’t succeed in delivering aid to Gaza. But her desire to do good in the world still can be achieved by turning her boat towards Yemen or Sudan. There she can spread her benevolence and draw attention to the plight of the millions who are suffering malnutrition and prolonged famine as a result of brutal conflicts.
Sandra Kane, Coogee, NSW
The sanctimonious virtue signalling and total lack of self-awareness of the self-righteous
crusaders on the Thunberg “selfie yacht” are demonstrated not only by their refusal to view a video of the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, but also by their being oblivious to the fact they are acting as that most heinous of beings – “the great white saviour” coming magnanimously to the aid of those they perceive as in need of their benevolence.
Deborah Morrison, Malvern East, Vic
++++++
Islamist made us feel very unsafe
Daily Telegraph | Shannon Tonkin | 11 June 2025
A controversial Islamic cleric being sued by Jewish leaders for racial vilification is expected to take the witnbess box today to defend allegations he made “derogatory” and “insulting” comments about Jews in religious sermons.
It comes as those who gave evidence in the Federal Court on Tuesday said they were left feeling “dehumanised” and “unsafe” after hearing anti-Semitic comments made by high-profile Sydney Muslim preacher Wissam Haddad in a series of five recorded speeches delivered just weeks after the deadly October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) co-chief executive Peter Wertheim and deputy president Robert Goot are suing the Al Madina Dawah Centre cleric in the Federal Court, with Justice Angus Stewart being asked to determine if Mr Haddad and the centre contravened the Racial Discrimination Act.
Mr Haddad denies any breach occurred, claiming the speeches primarily referenced and quoted Islamic scripture and were a genuine discussion for the purpose of religious education surrounding the unfolding Gaza war.
According to a statement of claim filed with the court, Mr Wertheim and Mr Goot allege Haddad’s commentary implied Jewish people were “mischievous”, “oppressive”, “shifty” and “arrogant” and “should be killed” by Muslims.
They allege the sermons further implied that Jewish people target Muslims by controlling the media, big business and banks and that they were “slanderous, troublemakers and schemers”.
Giving evidence in court, Mr Wertheim said: “We have previously felt safe in Australia – it’s become far less so since October 7, 2023.”
According to a statement of claim filed with the court, Mr Haddad likened Australia’s conservative politicians to dogs on a “Jewish leash” and claimed Jews were the descendants of pigs.
Mr Wertheim and Mr Goot are seeking a court order banning Mr Haddad and his centre from publishing similar content online, and for the centre to publish a “corrective notice”.
++++++
Deport in a storm for crew of ‘selfie yacht’
Daily Telegraph (Herald-Sun, Courier-Mail) | 11 June 2025
TEL AVIV: Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg and other activists have been deported from Israel after their yacht was seized by Israeli forces as they tried to deliver food and supplies to Gaza.
While Thunberg left the country on a flight to Sweden via France last night, five French activists were taken into custody after they refused to leave Israel voluntarily.
Israeli forces intercepted their yacht the Madleen, operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, in international waters on Monday and towed it to the port of Ashdod in Israel’s south. They were then transferred to Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, the foreign ministry said.
“Greta Thunberg just departed Israel on a flight to Sweden (via France),” Israel’s foreign ministry said on its official X account, along with a photo of the activist sitting on board a plane.
The five French activists who were among 12 campaigners on the Madleen were set to face an Israeli judge, French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said.
“Our consul was able to see the six French nationals arrested by the Israeli authorities last night,” Mr Barrot said on X.
“One of them has agreed to leave voluntarily and should return today. The other five will be subject to forced deportation proceedings.”
Israel’s foreign ministry dismissed the boat as the ‘selfie yacht’ and warned the activists they would face legal action if they didn’t leave the country.
“The passengers of the ‘Selfie Yacht’ arrived at Ben Gurion Airport to depart from Israel and return to their home countries,” it said on X earlier yesterday.
“Those who refuse to sign deportation documents and leave Israel will be brought before a judicial authority.”
The vessel carrying French, German, Brazilian, Turkish, Swedish, Spanish and Dutch activists had the stated aim of delivering humanitarian aid and breaking the Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory.
But the Madleen was intercepted in international waters about 185km west of the coast of Gaza at about 3am on Monday local time and was towed by the Israeli navy to Ashdod where it arrived late that night.
Thunberg and her fellow activists released dramatic pre-recorded videos claiming they had been kidnapped by the Israel forces and calling on their governments to secure their release.
But Thunberg’s demand was rejected by Stockholm, which effectively said it was her choice to travel to Gaza.
“A great responsibility rests on those who choose to travel contrary to the advice given to a place,” Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said.
“It is quite dangerous to run a campaign that means that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ consular hotline is called down.
“The consequence is that Swedes in need abroad have to wait in line for far too long.
“If she needs consular support, we will do everything we can, just as we do with all Swedish citizens.”
Israel is facing mounting pressure to allow more aid into Gaza to alleviate widespread shortages of food and basic supplies.
In a post on X, the Israeli foreign ministry said: “While Greta and others attempted to stage a media provocation whose sole purpose was to gain publicity – and which included less than a single truckload of aid – more than 1,200 aid trucks have entered Gaza from Israel within the past two weeks … there are ways to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip – they do not involve Instagram selfies.”
++++++
Greta’s getting attention
Daily Telegraph | Letters | 11 June 2025
Attention seeker Greta Thunberg like many protesters these days, seems more interested in just protesting about issues than actually offering any realistic alternatives (“Gaza Greta all at sea”, DT, 10/6).
The first point here is that Thunberg was on a single boat with other activists supposedly carrying aid supplies to Gaza.
One single boat which would barely have contained enough aid to make an impact.
Like any country they would not have been able to even enter Israel without a visa and I seriously doubt Israel would grant visas to activists who obviously support the enemy they are fighting against.
Also, even if they had been granted visas, who among these activists was going to transport the aid into Gaza and ensure it actually went to the Palestinian citizens and not hijacked by Hamas?
No, I suspect Thunberg and her fellow activists knew Israel would prevent their entry and did this as an attention seeking exercise which ultimately achieves nothing.
Why isn’t Greta campaigning to have Hamas release the remaining hostages? These activists seem to have forgotten who started this war.
B Thompson, Cowra
++++++
Greta’s lost cause
Herald-Sun | Text Talk | 11 June 2025
Activist Greta Thunberg’s intercepted voyage to Gaza wasn’t brave, it was dangerously naive (“Gaza Greta all at sea”, HS, 10/6).
She called it a “kidnapping” after the Israeli Navy stopped her boat, yet smiled as she was handed a sandwich.
Real hostages don’t get photo ops.
She claimed to bring aid to Gazans, but seemed unaware – or indifferent – who she was really helping.
If Thunberg had made it to Gaza, she wouldn’t have been hailed as a saviour.
As a Western woman, she might not have made it out at all.
Activism without awareness isn’t courage, it’s suicide dressed as solidarity.
Shane Shmuel, Elsternwick
++++++
Major progress in talks to free hostages: Israeli PM
Canberra Times / AAP | 11 June 2025
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8988995/major-progress-in-talks-to-free-hostages-israeli-pm/
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says there had been “significant progress” in efforts to secure the release of the remaining hostages in the Gaza Strip but that it is “too soon” to raise hopes that a deal would be reached.
Despite efforts by the United States, Egypt and Qatar to restore a ceasefire in the enclave, neither Israel nor Hamas has shown willingness to back down on core demands, with each side blaming the other for the failure to reach a deal.
Netanyahu, who has come under pressure from within his coalition to continue the war and block humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip, said in a video statement shared by his office that there had been progress but did not provide details.
A source familiar with the negotiations said that the United States had been giving Hamas more assurances, in the form of steps that would lead to an end to the war but said it was US officials who were optimistic, not Israeli ones.
The source said there was pressure from the US to have a deal done as soon as possible.
The White House National Security Council and representatives for US envoy Steve Witkoff, who is leading US efforts in the ceasefire talks, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Neither did Hamas representatives.
Israel’s leadership has said that it would wage war until the remaining 55 hostages held in the Gaza Strip are freed and when Hamas, whose October 2023 attack sparked the war, has been dismantled.
Hamas, which has ruled the enclave since 2007, has said it would no longer govern after the war if a Palestinian non-partisan technocratic committee took over but it has refused to disarm.
The US has proposed a 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Israel said it would abide by the terms but Hamas has sought amendments.
The militants have said that they would release all hostages in exchange for a permanent end to the war.
The war in the Gaza Strip has raged since Hamas-led militants killed 1200 people in Israel in the October 2023 attack and took 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel responded with a military campaign that has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
++++++
Thunberg says she was kidnapped in international waters
Canberra Times / AAP | 11 June 2025
Greta Thunberg has accused Israel of kidnapping her and her fellow pro-Palestinian activists in international waters, saying she declined to sign a document stating she entered the country illegally prior to being deported.
Speaking in the arrivals section of Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport after being deported from Israel, the Swedish activist said she and her team had broken no laws, and called for the immediate release of the activists still in Israel.
“I was very clear in my testimony that we were kidnapped on international waters and brought against our own will into Israel,” she said.
She laughed off criticism from US President Donald Trump, who had described her as an angry person, saying: “I think the world needs a lot more young angry women to be honest, especially with everything going on right now.”
Thunberg, 22, arrived in Paris a day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces boarded the charity vessel as it neared the Gaza Strip early on Monday, trying to break through a years-old naval blockade of the coastal enclave, and seized the 12-strong crew including Thunberg.
Thunberg denied her mission to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip by breaking through the naval blockade was a PR stunt, saying a previous effort in a larger boat was ended after the vessel was bombed.
She said she was now in desperate need of a shower and sleep.
She admitted it was unclear where she would be heading next, telling reporters it could be Sweden.
++++++
US ambassador to Israel says US no longer pursuing goal of independent Palestinian state
Mike Huckabee suggested any future Palestinian state should be carved out of ‘a Muslim country’
The Guardian | Joseph Gedeon | 11 June 2025
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/10/mike-huckabee-independent-palestinian-state
Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, has said that the US is no longer pursuing the goal of an independent Palestinian state, marking what analysts describe as the most explicit abandonment yet of a cornerstone of US Middle East diplomacy.
Asked during an interview with Bloomberg News if a Palestinian state remains a goal of US policy, he replied: “I don’t think so.”
The former Arkansas governor chosen by Donald Trump as his envoy to Israel went further by suggesting that any future Palestinian entity could be carved out of “a Muslim country” rather than requiring Israel to cede territory.
“Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,” Huckabee was quoted as saying. Those probably won’t happen “in our lifetime”, he told the news agency.
When pressed on Palestinian aspirations in the West Bank, where 3 million Palestinians live under Israeli occupation, Huckabee employed Israeli government terminology, asking: “Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?”
Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of US Middle East policy, and he has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term.
The state department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Middle East analysts said the comments made explicit a shift that has been broadly expected.
“This is not at all surprising given what we’ve seen in the last four-plus months, including the administration’s open support for expelling the population of Gaza, the legitimization of Israeli settlement and annexation policies,” said Khaled Elgindy, a scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and former adviser to Palestinian negotiators.
“This is an administration that is committed to Palestinian erasure, both physical and political,” Elgindy said. “The signs were there even in the first Trump term, which nominally supported a Palestinian ‘state’ that was shorn of all sovereignty and under permanent Israeli control. At least now they’ve abandoned the pretense.”
Yousef Munayyer, head of Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington DC, said Huckabee was merely articulating what US policy has long demonstrated in practice. “Mike Huckabee is saying out loud what US actions have been saying for decades and across different administrations,” he said. “Whatever commitments have been made in statements about a Palestinian state over time, US policy has never matched those stated commitments and only undercut them.”
The ambassador’s position has deep roots in his evangelical Christian beliefs and longstanding support for Israeli settlement expansion. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Huckabee said: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian.” In a 2017 visit to the occupied West Bank, he rejected the concept of Israeli occupation entirely.
“I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria,” said Huckabee at the time. “There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
What distinguishes Huckabee, Munayyer argued, has been his willingness to be explicit about objectives that previous officials had kept veiled. “What makes Huckabee unique is that he is shameless enough to admit out loud the goal of erasing the Palestinian people.”
The analysts add that Huckabee’s explicit rejection of Palestinian statehood, which comes as the war in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced most of the territory’s more than 2 million residents, would also create diplomatic complications for US allies.
“This will put European and Arab states in a bind, since they are still strongly committed to two states but have always deferred to Washington,” Elgindy said.
Hours after Huckabee’s comments were reported, the US imposed sanctions on a leading Palestinian human rights organization, Addameer, as well as five charity groups in the Middle East and Europe, claiming that they support Palestinian militants.
The US treasury department alleged that Addameer, which provides legal services to Palestinians detained by Israel or the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, “has long supported and is affiliated” with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a militant group classified as a terrorist organization by the US and EU.
Israel raided the West Bank offices of Addameer and other groups in 2022 over their alleged PFLP links. The United Nations condemned that raid at the time, saying that Israeli authorities had not presented to the UN any credible evidence to justify their declarations.
The Guardian later reported that a classified CIA report showed the agency had been unable to find any evidence to support Israel’s description of the group as a “terrorist organization”.
++++++
Israeli troops kill 17, say Gaza officials, as UN experts decry ‘obliteration’ of education
Palestinians reportedly killed while trying to reach food sites, while Israel accused of war crime in targeting schools
The Guardian | Emma Graham-Harrison | 11 June 2025
Israeli troops killed at least 17 Palestinians trying to reach food distribution sites on Tuesday, health authorities in Gaza said, as UN experts accused Israel’s military of committing war crimes including the “obliteration” of Gaza’s education system.
More than 130 people have been shot dead over the past two weeks in a series of brutally repetitive attacks on desperate crowds trying to access food handouts. Hundreds of others have been injured.
After 11 weeks of total siege and a continuing blockade, many in Gaza are so hungry they are still risking their lives to walk to centres run by the secretive US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the hope of getting some supplies.
The most vulnerable, including the sick, elderly people and those weakest from hunger, cannot even attempt the dangerous journey.
“This system does not intend to address hunger,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said in a post on social media.
“Aid deliveries & distribution must be at scale & safe. In Gaza, this can be done only through the United Nations including Unrwa. We have the expertise, the knowledge and community trust.”
Israel has attempted to shift most food distribution away from humanitarian organisations including UN agencies to GHF, a logistics startup that has never worked in a conflict zone at scale.
GHF hands out food at sites secured by armed guards and under the protection of the Israeli military. Shootings have targeted people travelling to the centres, not inside them or in their immediate vicinity.
The killings on Tuesday came hours before GHF began operations, and outside its site, the foundation said in a statement. It has asked the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to “do more” to keep people safe and suggested Palestinians hoping to get food without being shot dead should check social media for safety tips.
“It is vital that aid seekers stay on the dedicated passage and closely follow instructions from our Facebook posts,” the GHF statement said. The spokesperson did not respond to a question about how Gaza’s many people who no longer have regular access to electricity or internet connections should seek safety updates.
The Israeli military said it was aware of reports of injuries on Tuesday morning after troops fired “warning shots” towards “suspects” in the Wadi Gaza area whom its troops deemed a threat. “The warning shots were fired hundreds of metres from the aid distribution site,” a spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the numbers of casualties reported in Gaza did not “align” with information on injuries from an initial IDF inquiry.
The 17 deaths on Tuesday morning brought to 144 the total number of Palestinians who local health authorities say have been killed trying to get food from GHF centres since they first opened.
Hours after that attack Israeli authorities deported Greta Thunberg and other activists who had attempted to sail to the territory on the Madleen yacht with food and medical aid.
All rejected the claim that they had entered Israel illegally, because Israeli forces seized the boat in international waters then brought them to an Israeli port by force.
In an apparent response to the huge amount of publicity generated by the Madleen even before it set sail, Israel’s foreign ministry on Monday denounced the crew as “celebrities” on a “selfie yacht”.
Although they were never expected to reach Gaza, whose shores are guarded by Israel’s navy, the ship intensified international focus on hunger in Gaza.
Israel has been under heavy pressure over hunger in Gaza, with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announcing that he had lifted the siege last month after warnings from longstanding allies that the “starvation crisis” there was damaging Israel’s international standing.
However, his government has said most food supplies allowed into the territory should go through the GHF.
The UN has been able to bring only limited supplies of flour into Gaza since Israel lifted the total siege three weeks ago, and most of that had been taken by starving Palestinians or looted by armed gangs before the UN could distribute it, the deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Monday.
Israel’s broader military campaign has made education impossible in Gaza, through damage and destruction to more than 90% of school and university buildings, according to a report from the UN’s independent commission of inquiry into the occupied Palestinian territories.
More than 658,000 children in Gaza have been prevented from attending school since the war began. Israeli forces have also destroyed more than half of all religious and cultural sites in Gaza, including archaeological sites, a museum and the Great Omari mosque.
These attacks were part of a “widespread and relentless assault” on the Palestinian people in which Israel’s military had committed war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination, the report found.
“We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, the chair of the commission.
“Israel’s targeting of the educational, cultural and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm the present generations and generations to come, hindering their right to self-determination.”
++++++
UK, Australia and Canada sanction two far-right Israeli ministers for inciting West Bank violence
New Zealand and Norway also impose measures on Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich
The Guardian | Patrick Wintour | 11 June 2025
The UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway have placed sanctions on two Israeli government ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, largely for inciting violence against Palestinians in their campaign to gain control of new settlements in the West Bank.
Ben-Gvir, the security minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, and Smotrich, the finance minister, will face travel bans and have any assets in the five countries frozen. It was stressed that they were being sanctioned in their personal capacity, placing no restrictions on the ministries they lead. Netanyahu has promised to retaliate.
The move was quickly condemned by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who called for the sanctions to be lifted and said the US stood “shoulder to shoulder” with Israel.
“These sanctions do not advance US-led efforts to achieve a ceasefire, bring all hostages home, and end the war,” Rubio wrote, adding: “We remind our partners not to forget who the real enemy is.”
In a carefully prepared move, for which Israel had little advance notice, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, along with the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway, announced the sanctions in a joint statement: “We are steadfastly committed to the two-state solution and will continue to work with our partners towards its implementation.
“It is the only way to guarantee security and dignity for Israelis and Palestinians and ensure long-term stability in the region, but it is imperilled by extremist settler violence and settlement expansion.
“Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights. These actions are not acceptable. This is why we have taken action now – to hold those responsible to account.
“We will strive to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the immediate release of the remaining hostages by Hamas, which can have no future role in the governance of Gaza, a surge in aid and a path to a two-state solution.
“Today’s measures focus on the West Bank, but of course this cannot be seen in isolation from the catastrophe in Gaza. We continue to be appalled by the immense suffering of civilians, including the denial of essential aid. There must be no unlawful transfer of Palestinians from Gaza or within the West Bank, nor any reduction in the territory of the Gaza Strip.”
The previous UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, said he had planned to take the move against the two ministers last summer, but held back when he was told the decision was too political to take during an election campaign.
By building an alliance of five countries, the UK may hope to protect itself from being the sole subject of Israeli and US anger. It may also be intended to stress Israel’s growing international isolation, but that will not disturb Israel as long as it has the protection of the White House.
The EU requires unanimity among its 27 states to take parallel action, and would face resistance from Hungary. It is instead looking at possible trade restrictions that only require a qualified majority of EU states to approve them. Pressure has been building for concrete action in Canada, Norway and Australia.
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, described the UK decision as unacceptable and said it was “outrageous that elected representatives and members of the government are subjected to these kind of measures”.
Smotrich said: “Britain has already tried once to prevent us from settling the cradle of our homeland, and we will not allow it to do so again.”
Ben-Gvir said: “We passed Pharaoh, we will also pass Starmer’s wall.”
The former defence minister Benny Gantz said: “I vehemently disagree with ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir on a wide range of issues – but the imposition of British sanctions on ministers in the one and only democracy in the Middle East, the state of Israel, is a profound moral mistake and sends a dangerous message to terrorists.”
The Foreign Office said the sanctions were primarily for the men’s incitement of violence against Palestinian civilians, and that ministers had repeatedly made clear to the Netanyahu government in public and private that Israel must cease expansion of illegal settlements, which undermine a future Palestinian state, clamp down on settler violence and condemn inflammatory and extremist statements from both individuals.
Lammy said: “These two individuals have been inciting violence against Palestinian people for months and months and months.”
Smotrich has approved the expansion of West Bank settlements and campaigned against humanitarian aid in Gaza, saying in May that he would allow “not even a grain of wheat” to enter the war zone.
He said on 6 May that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to … the south to a humanitarian zone without Hamas or terrorism, and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries”.
In remarks condemned by Germany, one of Israel’s closest allies, he said last year that the potential deaths of 2 million Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza Strip from hunger may be justifiable.
“We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned,” he told a conference hosted by the Israel Hayom newspaper.
Ben-Gvir stormed the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on 26 May and has called for the Muslim world’s third-holiest site to be replaced with a synagogue. He has also called for the voluntary departure of Palestinian refugees from Gaza.
Lammy described Smotrich’s comments as monstrous and repellant in the Commons a fortnight ago, but he held back from placing sanctions on the two men. He imposed sanctions on a small group of settlers and announced there would be no further talks on an expanded trade deal with Israel.
The former Conservative Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell said he fully understood why the government had imposed the sanctions. The Labour chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Emily Thornberry, welcomed the move, but said it must not be a substitute for any plans to recognise a Palestinian state.
Labour Friends of Israel said: “By their words and deeds, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s actions in government have given succour to those who perpetrate disgraceful and utterly unacceptable violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.”
8995