Media Report 2025.07.08
Police told not to confront CBD protesters
The Age | Cameron Houston, Chip Le Grand & Rachel Eddie | 8 July 2025
Victoria’s new chief commissioner has ordered a review into police handling of a violent attack on an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne after it emerged officers were earlier given orders not to interact with a rowdy demonstration in the CBD.
Premier Jacinta Allan said it was reasonable for people to ask why there were not more arrests after a group that splintered from the demonstration rampaged through Miznon restaurant in the CBD on Friday night.
She said it was also fair to ask why slogans such as “Death to the IDF” were tolerated at pro-Palestinian rallies. “That is a fair question,” she said after visiting the East Melbourne Synagogue fire bombed on the same night as the restaurant attack. “The police minister and I were briefed this morning by the chief commissioner, and he is examining the operational response.”
Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush, who was sworn into the job last week, will join a new anti-hate taskforce established by Allan in response to the weekend’s series of attacks at Miznon, the synagogue and a defence contractor in Greensborough where a car was torched and others damaged.
The taskforce includes Allan, Police Minister Anthony Carbines and Lord Mayor Nick Reece and will hold its first meeting on Tuesday. A well-placed government source not authorised to publicly discuss the work of the taskforce said a permit system for protests would probably be an early item for consideration.
Police responded swiftly to the firebombing of the historic East Melbourne Synagogue in Albert Street, which is also known as the City Shul. Angelo Loras, a 34-year-old with a last known address in Sydney, was arrested and charged within two days of the attack, which caused only superficial damage to the front door of the synagogue.
Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, and federal Opposition Leader Sussan Ley are expected to visit the synagogue this week. At Miznon, police were caught unprepared for the violence after officers were given instructions not to engage with the earlier anti-police demonstration at the State Library of Victoria, according to a well-placed source not authorised to speak publicly.
About 20 people broke away from this gathering and stormed Miznon in nearby Hardware Lane. During the incident at Miznon, which unfolded when Hardware Lane was packed with Friday night diners, a window was broken, food was thrown and tables were turned over while protesters shouted slogans including “Death to the IDF”.
The same chant was heard at Sunday’s pro-Palestinian rally, where the attacks on the restaurant and synagogue were also condemned by organisers. One person was arrested at Miznon for allegedly hindering police. Officers ordered others to move on.
This masthead has confirmed, through the well-placed source, that dozens of officers were assigned to the anti-police demonstration, which was promoted online by various hard left and pro-Palestinian activist groups.
At a Friday afternoon tactical briefing, a decision was taken for police to not have a physical presence at the protest, to avoid inflaming the group.
Instead, officers are understood to have waited on buses parked in surrounding streets when the demonstration began shortly after 5.30pm. This meant police were unaware when, sometime before 8.15pm, some of the pro testers started walking towards Miznon. The restaurant had in previous days been identified on social media as a target by activists because one of its owners is involved in a controversial Israeli and US-linked charity, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
The foundation has faced criticism for its role in Gaza food distribution sites where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed. A police spokeswoman confirmed resources were allocated to the anti-police protest but did not say how they were deployed.
“Victoria Police was aware of a planned protest in Melbourne on Friday 4 July. Victoria Police had specific resources available to respond when needed, as was the case in the incident that took place at a restaurant on Hardware Lane,” a spokesperson said.
A source with knowledge of the police investigation said that most of the protesters questioned by police at the restaurant were known to police because of their frequent attendance at the regular Sunday rallies.
Allan described the decision to protest on Sunday, less than two days after the synagogue attack, as “particularly odious, hateful behaviour” and said she was open to taking further action to stop public demonstrations of hate speech.
New anti-vilification laws which carry jail terms for serious offences were passed by parliament after last December’s arson attack which destroyed the Adass Israel synagogue in Ripponlea but are yet to come into force. Legislation is still being drafted to prohibit face masks at protests and flags and symbols associated with terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
“If there is more to do we will take that action,” Allan said. Opposition police spokesman David Southwick said that the government had acted too slowly in response to previous attacks and surging antisemitism.
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Gaza buffer zone plan outlined ahead of meeting
The Age (& Sydney Morning Herald) / AP | Wafaa Shurafa & Abby Sewell | 8 July 2025
Deir al-Balah, Gaza: New details of the Gaza ceasefire proposal have emerged, including a possible buffer zone and a major increase in humanitarian aid, as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Qatar ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s White House visit.
“There are 20 hostages that are alive, 30 dead. I am determined, we are determined, to bring them all back. And we will also be determined to ensure Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” Netanyahu said before departing, emphasising the goal of eliminating Hamas’ military and governing power.
A person familiar with the negotiations shared with the Associated Press a copy of the latest ceasefire proposal submitted by mediators to Hamas, and its veracity was confirmed by two other people familiar with the document. All three spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the talks with media. The document outlines plans for a 60-day ceasefire during which Hamas would hand over 10 living and 18 dead hostages, Israeli forces would withdraw to a buffer zone along Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt, and significant aid would be brought in.
The document says the aid would be distributed by UN agencies and Palestinian Red Crescent, but does not specify what will happen to the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been distributing food aid since May.
The Qatar talks ended inconclusively, two Palestinian sources told AP, adding that the Israeli delegation didn’t have a sufficient mandate to reach an agreement with Hamas. As in previous ceasefire agreements, Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli facilities would be released in exchange for the hostages, but the number is not yet agreed upon.
The proposal stops short of guaranteeing a permanent end to the war – a condition demanded by Hamas – but says negotiations for a permanent ceasefire would take place during the 60 days. During that time, “President [Donald] Trump guarantees Israel’s adherence” to halting military operations, the document says, adding Trump “will personally announce the ceasefire agreement”.
The personal guarantee by Trump appeared to be an attempt to reassure Hamas Israel would not unilaterally resume fighting as it did in March during a previous ceasefire, when talks to extend it appeared to stall.
Trump said last week that Israel had agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire, but it was un clear if the terms were those in the document reviewed by AP. Hamas has requested some changes, but not specified them.
Separately, an Israeli official said the security cabinet late on Saturday approved sending aid into northern Gaza, where civilians suffer from acute food shortages. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the decision, declined to give more details.
Northern Gaza has had just a trickle of aid since Israel ended the latest ceasefire in March. In Gaza, hospital officials said Israeli airstrikes killed at least 38 Palestinians on Sunday. Israeli strikes hit two houses in Gaza City, killing 20 Palestinians and wounding 25 others, said Mohammed Abu Selmia, director of Shifa Hospital, which serves the area.
Israel’s military said it had struck several Hamas fighters in two locations in the area of Gaza City. In southern Gaza, Israeli strikes killed 18 Palestinians in Mawasi, on the Mediterranean coast, where thousands of dis placed people live in tents, said officials at Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis.
It said two families were among the dead. Israel’s military had no immediate comment on those strikes but said it had struck 130 targets across Gaza in the past 24 hours, including Hamas command and control structures, storage facilities, weapons and launchers, and that it killed a number of militants.
Separately, Israel attacked Houthi targets in three Yemeni ports and a power plant, the Israeli military said yesterday.
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Antisemitism
The Age | Letters (1) | 8 July 2025
I stand with Jews but marches must continue
While The Age’s editorial, “Sunday’s Gaza protest a glaring example of tone-deaf intransigence” (7/7), denigrates Sunday’s pro-Palestine rally as disrespectful and inappropriate: “Yesterday, of all days they should have paused”, the genocide in Gaza intensifies.
I, too, deplore the recent events in Melbourne involving arson and the destruction of property and stand with the Jewish community at this time. However, I strongly believe that the continuation of peaceful protest against the atrocities being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank is more important than ever.
Just when I thought I could take no more, this morning I watched footage on the ABC (7/7) of amputees in Gaza, including children, who are having more and more of their bodies amputated, bit by bit, due to the poor conditions and lack of medical aid causing infection.
The appalling suffering of the people of Gaza is inhumane and barbaric. All people of good con science must stand up to end this horror.
Jody Ellis, Thornbury
Excusing antisemitism is antisemitic
The attitudes expressed in your correspondent’s letter (“Violence is counterproductive”, 7/7) are part of the problem. She condemned Friday night’s antisemitic violence not because it is immoral and rips at the fabric of our multicultural society, but because it is counterproductive to the Palestinian cause.
Then, she falsely claims that antisemitism is weaponised by Israel’s supporters. This is not true. Those of us who support Israel accept that criticism of Israel, the same as could be made of any other country, is not antisemitic. Claims such as hers seek to excuse actual antisemitism and are also arguably antisemitic themselves.
They suggest those sneaky Zionists, mainly Jews, are fraudulently claiming antisemitism to prevent supposedly legitimate criticism of Israel. And then, to round it off, she has an unfair swipe at Israel, when it’s the demonisation of Israel that motivated Friday night’s violence.
Robbie Gore, Brighton East
Protest and violent acts elsewhere conflated
Your July 7 editorial unfairly equates a peaceful protest calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza with unrelated and condemnable criminal acts that occurred two days prior. This conflation is not only inaccurate but dangerous, as it misrepresents a movement grounded in non-violence, solidarity, and international law.
For nearly two years, people from diverse backgrounds have gathered weekly in Melbourne to call for justice, not to incite division. To suggest that Palestinians and their supporters should remain silent out of fear of “offending Australian values” is to ignore the very essence of those values – democracy, free expression, and standing against injustice.
The real issue is not protest slogans, but the ongoing Israeli bombardment of civilians, including children, in breach of international law. To frame those opposing war crimes as tone-deaf is to deflect from the true horrors unfolding in Gaza, enabled by Western governments, including our own.
Blaming protesters for the actions of a few criminals is irresponsible and stifles legitimate dissent. Now, more than ever, we must amplify, not silence, voices for peace, justice, and accountability.
Ezzat Hijazi, Revesby, NSW
When moral authority of protest is lost
Any slogan or chant that includes the cry of “death to” delegitimises the moral authority of the protest, the protester, and the cause being advocated for, and unleashes and rein forces the very violence and hatred that lies at the heart of the antagonism in dispute.
Harry Zable, Campbells Creek
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Antisemitism
The Age | Letters (2) | 8 July 2025
Performative attacks
Tony Wright nails it – again (“Thugs who perform violence over distant atrocities have no place here”, 6/7). There is no doubt that individuals and groups in both Israel and Gaza have committed horrendous atrocities but violent and disruptive protests and attacks on places of worship or businesses in Australia will change absolutely nothing in the Middle East.
Do the protesters really think Netanyahu or Hamas have the slightest interest in the opinions or actions of Australian protesters? The only consequence of these performative, and often criminal, actions is to cause pain and division in Australian society.
Surely, the better way, the Australian way, is to demonstrate that people of different faiths and different views can live harmoniously and respectfully together.
April Baragwanath, Geelong
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Jewish community braces for more antisemitic attacks
Sydney Morning Herald / AAP | Callum Godde & Rachel Ward | 8 July 2025
Australia’s Jewish community is bracing for more antisemitic at tacks as a task force is charged with doing whatever it takes to tackle hate. Calls for action have sharpened after four incidents in Victoria over the weekend, including a fire at East Melbourne Synagogue that forced worship pers to flee.
“It’s terrifying,” Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion said. “I don’t know where the next attack will be, or when, or how. All I can say is that it is statistically likely that it will occur. So far we have been lucky in that no one has died.”
He welcomed Victoria’s new task force to tackle hate, which will examine police powers, but said the state government took too long to act. He urged authorities to disallow weekly pro-Palestine protests in their current form and introduce changes such as protest zones.
Some demonstrators at Sunday’s rally in Melbourne reportedly chanted, “Death to the IDF” (Israel Defence Forces). Australia’s antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal said the synagogue attack was not a random incident because hatred and intimidation had been allowed to fester, calling for stronger policing and punishments. “Violent or intimidating protest activity which targets the Jewish community is not protest, it is antisemitism,” she said.
Sydney man Angelo Loras, 34, has been charged with set ting fire to the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation’s front doors on Friday night, forcing about 20 people inside to flee. The attack came seven months after part of the Adass Israel Synagogue was destroyed.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan met with synagogue leaders yesterday, pledging mental health support. She said there were no plans to ban the weekly pro-Palestine demonstrations because freedom of protest was a central tenet of democracy, while hitting out at the protesters’ chanting as “odious, hateful behaviour”.
She was confident anti-vilification laws coming into force in September would give police more powers to crack down on extremist behaviour, as would future legislation to ban masks at protests.
Rally organisers hit back at criticism, stressing they were opposed to the Israeli occupation of Gaza. “To combat antisemitism, Jacinta Allen needs to learn to distinguish between the IDF, which is responsible for war crimes, and Australian Jews,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
Soon after the synagogue fire, Israeli restaurant Miznon was targeted by masked pro-Palestinian protesters. A window was smashed, tables flipped and chairs thrown as police directed them to leave the area, with one person arrested.
Later the same night in the city’s north-east, a group spray painted cars with antisemitic “inferences” and set them alight. CCTV footage released by po lice shows figures in black hooded jumpers lighting the fires outside a Greensborough business, with detectives looking for five people seen fleeing on e-bikes. A fourth incident involved stencils used to spray-paint offensive images on pillars and walls near a Holocaust museum in Elsternwick.
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Suffering without end
Sydney Morning Herald | Letters | 8 July 2025
I feel for Rabbi Gabi Kaltmann and all Jewish people (“Synagogue attack targets a community’s precious story”, July 7). What Jewish people have suffered for millennia weighs on the world’s conscience, and many Christians globally have been complicit.
However, my support for Jewish people does not cover Netanyahu and his gang in the slightest, just as my support for the Palestinian people does not mean I agree with the tactics of Hamas.
Some institutions and individuals refuse to distinguish between antisemitism and opposition to the current Israeli government’s destruction of Gaza and its people. This is both complicity in the current crime against the Palestinians and a gross betrayal of the Jewish people and their history.
Sister Susan Connelly, Croydon
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Labor eyes school focus on antisemitism
The Australian | Greg Brown & Noah Yim | 8 July 2025
Education Minister Jason Clare “stands ready” to reform the school curriculum so children are taught more about anti-Semitism, declaring there was a role for teachers in educating young people about the “poison” of bigotry towards Jews.
As the Victorian government set up an “anti-hate” taskforce following a string of attacks against Jews in Melbourne at the weekend, Mr Clare said he was willing to back changes to the school curriculum if they were recommended by the Special Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism, Jillian Segal.
Mr Clare’s comments come as Ms Segal and former prime minister Tony Abbott called for a crackdown on anti-Israel protests and former Department of Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo called for an Operation Sovereign Borders-style taskforce to prevent terror attacks against Jews.
Mr Abbott accused Labor of failing to take anti-Semitism seriously enough after the October 7, 2023, terror attack in Israel.
“The only way to show seriousness now would be to ban the pro-Hamas marches and use the police to break them up like the anti-lockdown protests were broken up,” Mr Abbott said.
The West Australian government on Monday backed a fresh national cabinet meeting on anti-Semitism, although the need for this was played down by the NSW government.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan left the door open to backing a national cabinet meeting while Queensland Premier David Crisafulli said “state governments must stand shoulder to shoulder with the commonwealth against anti-Semitism”.
With the peak Jewish body calling for anti-Semitism to be part of the national curriculum as part of a 15-point plan to tackle the issue, Mr Clare told The Australian that “Holocaust education is part of the Australian curriculum”.
“It’s only by learning the lessons of the Holocaust that we can ensure it never happens again,” he said.
Mr Clare said the government was also providing funding to expand social cohesion programs in schools while establishing the National Holocaust Education Centre in Canberra.
He acknowledged, however, that there was more to be done.
“There is no place for the poison of anti-Semitism in our community, and our schools play an important role in educating young people about anti-Semitism and racism more broadly,” Mr Clare said.
“There is always more that can be done, and the government stands ready to work with the Special Envoy to Combat anti-Semitism on further reforms here.”
The Australian understands Ms Segal is likely to advise the government that there needs to be more taught about anti-Semitism in schools.
She said the “environment of hatred and intimidation that has been allowed to grow and fester needs to be tackled head on”.
“These attacks are fundamentally incompatible with Australian values, and have rightfully been condemned by political leaders. I support action, by our political leaders, that will end these violent and intimidating protests,” Ms Segal said.
“Condemnation is not enough. We urgently need stronger policing and laws that name this hate for what it is, and punish it accordingly.
“Violent or intimidating protest activity which targets the Jewish community is not protest, it is anti-Semitism. Australians know this. It must stop.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin urged Labor to act on the body’s 15-point plan to combat anti-Semitism, as was presented in a letter to Anthony Albanese in February.
“Point one of which is for the government to stand up a joint counter-terrorism taskforce before there is a mass casualty event, not after,” Mr Ryvchin said.
“The time for political rhetoric has passed. We need action.”
Mr Pezzullo said it was “imperative” the Albanese government get ahead of a potential terror attack by setting up a taskforce with members of ASIO and federal and state police.
He said the taskforce make-up should mimic Operation Sovereign Borders, set up by the Abbott government to stop illegal boat arrivals.
“Regrettably, we have to assume that such an attack is now probable (to use the ASIO rating), especially as Iranian and possibly other hostile services might decide that mass casualty attacks on Jewish people and/or places would be an effective way to strike back at Israel,” he said.
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Gaza-event MPs told to focus on ALP priorities
The Australian | Paul Garvey & Paige Taylor | 8 July 2025
West Australian Premier Roger Cook has told five rogue Labor MPs who joined an event organised by a Greens pro-Palestine campaigner to focus on the government’s priorities amid the signs of tension in the government’s swollen backbenches.
Ousted Labor powerbroker Dave Kelly joined forces with the Greens’ star recruit, former ABC foreign correspondent Sophie McNeill, to create the first of what Ms McNeill says will be a series of briefings about the Gaza war for members of the WA parliament.
Four other Labor backbenchers – Hugh Jones, Lisa Munday, Klara Andric and Ayor Makur Chuot – joined the Greens MPs and Animal Justice MP Amanda Dorn for the briefing. Mr Kelly said the group heard from Amy Curtis, a Perth nurse who spent three months in Gaza with the Red Cross, and Perth man Ayman Qwaider, who Mr Kelly said had lost his sister and her children to an Israeli airstrike.
“The testimony was not about politics. It was about the staggering level of suffering,” Mr Kelly said. “We need an end to the war and all hostages and prisoners released with aid returned.”
Asked about the meeting, Mr Cook’s office did not appear to endorse the Labor MPs’ decision to participate. A spokesman said: “All state government MPs are expected to be focused on the government’s priorities of delivering jobs, healthcare and homes for Western Australians.”
Mr Kelly was a longtime powerbroker for the dominant left faction of the WA Labor Party and a cabinet minister until 2022 when then premier Mark McGowan forced him to the backbench. Labor sources said Mr Kelly was unlikely to be preselected for another term and was therefore acting with unprecedented autonomy.
Labor’s dominance in WA means its ranks include numerous MPs with little to no chance of becoming ministers. There have been growing signs of disharmony, primarily over the government’s support for the oil and gas industry, and the Gaza meeting is the most clear sign to date of disunity within state Labor over the conflict.
Ms McNeill told The Australian that she and Mr Kelly organised the event inside the WA parliament “because we thought it was really critical for parliamentarians to hear first-hand about this unfolding genocide”. She said there was a lot of support for Palestine among state and federal Labor MPs who, she said, were increasingly uncomfortable with the Albanese government’s “failure to act”.
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Premier sets up taskforce to combat hate and ‘evilness’
The Australian | Lily McCaffrey | 8 July 2025
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has announced a new anti-hate taskforce, following a spate of anti-Semitic incidents in Melbourne at the weekend, including an attempted firebombing attack on a Melbourne synagogue.
Ms Allan, who on Monday visited the historic East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, said the taskforce would be in addition to the Local Escalation and Help (LEAH) group established by the government in the wake of the bombing of Ripponlea’s Adass Israel Synagogue in December.
“Where LEAH focuses on problem-solving at a local community level, the anti-hate taskforce will look at the bigger picture across our city and state,” Ms Allan said.
The Premier had tapped Police Minister Anthony Carbines, lord mayor Nicholas Reece and police executives for the taskforce, her office said.
Invitations to the first meeting, to be held this week, will also go out to representatives of Melbourne’s Jewish community.
Ms Allan said the taskforce would advise on how Victoria Police planned to operationalise the criminal components of the Anti-Vilification and Social Cohesion Act, which passed the Victorian parliament earlier this year.
The taskforce will also advise on progress from the LEAH meetings occurring within the Jewish community and the progress of community consultation and development of legislation for increased police powers to stamp out extreme and violent protests.
Ms Allan on Monday morning said she had spoken with Rabbi Moshe Gutnick and members of the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation and pledged funding for mental health support to those impacted.
“Hate like this has no place in any place of worship, but when it particularly attacks a synagogue, it has that horrific, that evilness, of anti-Semitism as its undertone,” she said.
“And that is why I will not rest and will continue to take every action necessary to not just strengthen the law but to respond and lead in terms of how we as a community … need to act, to say very, very clearly that acts of hate, acts of violence, acts of anti-Semitism, have no place here in Melbourne and Victoria.”
At the weekend, police arrested and charged Angelo Loras, who on Friday allegedly doused the front door of the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation with an accelerant before trying to set the building alight as 20 worshippers gathered inside for Shabbat. Also on Friday night, Israeli restaurant Miznon in Melbourne’s CBD was stormed by protesters, some of whom were wearing keffiyehs.
Police are also investigating a third incident in which three cars were vandalised and set alight in Greensborough.
Anti-Defamation Commission chair Dvir Abramovich welcomed the establishment of the taskforce.
“It signals something that Jewish Australians need to hear right now: that they are not alone, and that their government sees this crisis for what it is, a sustained campaign of intimidation targeting our community’s right to live in peace, to pray in safety and to belong,” Dr Abramovich said.
“As I stood on the charred steps of the synagogue this week, I thought about the children inside who will now forever associate Shabbat with smoke and fear.
“That’s not just a Jewish problem, that’s an Australian problem.
“This taskforce must not be symbolic. It must be muscular, resourced, and fearless.”
Victorian Opposition Leader Brad Battin said the government had failed to deal with the hate crimes occurring in the state and called for police to be given stronger powers to move protesters on in order to crack down on hate speech.
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West bank Sheiks offer to accept Jewish state
The Australian / Agencies | Ronnie Reyes | 8 July 2025
Five of the most powerful Palestinian officials in the West Bank city of Hebron have said they are willing to leave the Palestinian Authority and join the Abraham Accords, recognising the state of Israel for the first time.
In a major move aimed at peace with Israel, the sheiks have written to Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat expressing their desire to transform the West Bank’s largest city into an emirate that “recognise[s] the state of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people”, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Sheik Wadee’ al-Jaabari – one of the most influential leaders in Hebron, the West Bank’s largest region – urged Israel and US President Donald Trump, who oversaw the Abraham Accords in his first term, to back the plan for self-governance.
“If we will get the blessing of honourable President Trump and the US for this project, Hebron could be like the Gulf, like Dubai,” Sheik Jaabari told the Journal.
Accepting Israel as a Jewish state goes further than the Palestinian Authority ever has, and sweeps aside decades of rejectionism, the WSJ writes.
The Palestinian Authority has stood as the de facto ruler of the autonomous Palestinian regions since 1994 as part of the US-backed Oslo Accords, which Sheik Jaabari and other sheiks slammed as an agreement that “only brought damage, death, economic disaster and destruction”.
They said the PA was forced on the Palestinian people and never brought the prosperity and peace Israel and the US promised – as evidenced by violence along the border and Hamas’s operations inside the West Bank. Sheik Jabbari and his supporters have instead cited Mr Trump’s Abraham Accords as a road map to “coexistence” with Israel. The agreement previously normalised relationships between the Jewish state and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.
With the West Bank occupied by Israel and seeing daily violence that has only escalated since the war with Hamas began, Sheik Jaabari proposed a trial run that would see 1000 Hebron workers establish an autonomous 400ha economic zone bordering Israel.
If all went well, the zone would grow to 5000 more residents and then 50,000, with the sheiks pledging a “zero tolerance” policy against terrorism.
Sheik Jabbari accused the PA of supporting terrorist activity in the West Bank. “I plan to cut off the PA,” he said. “It doesn’t represent the Palestinians.”
Mr Barkat, who has been meeting with the sheiks since February to discuss a potential deal, touted the proposal as a step forward for Israeli-Palestinian relations.
“Sheik Jaabari wants peace with Israel and to join the Abraham Accords, with the support of his fellow sheiks. Who in Israel is going to say no?” Mr Barkat told the WSJ.
“Nobody in Israel believes in the PA, and you won’t find many Palestinians who do either.”
The WSJ reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is supportive of the initiative but remains cautious, waiting to see how it develops.
The newspaper says the sheiks said they mostly got along with Israeli settlers in the West Bank and the settlers would find much to like in the plan, which breaks from the Oslo Accords’ scheme to divide the land. While the Hebron sheiks would gain territory, so would the settlers.
It remains to be seen how the bold proposal will be accepted by the Jewish state and Hebron residents alike, with some from the West Bank claiming it “doesn’t represent us”, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
The formation of the new zone could also cause problems along the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but the sheiks say land disputes can be easily negotiated.
Sheik Jabbari and his colleagues assured Mr Barkat they would be able to drum up support for the proposal, touting it as the only hope to prevent Hebron and the West Bank from becoming another Gaza.
Sheik Jabbari maintains that his proposal is the best solution for his people, given that Hamas crushed all hopes for a Palestinian state when it attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing more than 1200 people and kidnapping 251.
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No leadership, absolute chaos: Hamas in disarray
The Australian / AFP | Sharon Aronowicz | 8 July 2025
Hamas is reportedly in a state of collapse after months of Israeli strikes that have decapitated the group’s leadership, and Gaza’s powerful clans are filling the void.
A senior officer in Hamas’s security forces has told the BBC the group has lost control of 80 per cent of the Gaza Strip, adding: “What’s stopping Israel from continuing this war?
“Let’s be realistic here – there’s barely anything left of the security structure. Most of the leadership, about 95 per cent, are now dead. The active figures have all been killed. Logically, it has to continue until the end. Israel has the upper hand, the world is silent, the Arab regimes are silent, criminal gangs are everywhere, society is collapsing.”
He spoke as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed to Washington to meet Donald Trump, saying he hoped a meeting with the US President could “help advance” a Gaza ceasefire deal.
Ahead of their meeting on Tuesday (AEST), Mr Trump said there was a “good chance” Israel and Hamas would agree on a ceasefire this week. “I think there’s a good chance we have a deal with Hamas during the week, during the coming week,” Mr Trump said. Such a deal would mean “quite a few hostages” could be released, he added.
Speaking before boarding a flight to Washington, Mr Netanyahu said: “We are working to achieve this deal that we have discussed, under the conditions that we have agreed to.”
He added he had dispatched a negotiating team to Doha “with clear instructions”, and thought the meeting with Mr Trump “can definitely help advance this (deal), which we are all hoping for”. Mr Netanyahu had previously said Hamas’s response to a draft US-backed ceasefire proposal contained “unacceptable” demands.
But the Hamas official told the BBC the group was in disarray after the majority of its leadership in Gaza, including the feared Yahya Sinwar and his brother Mohammad, were assassinated by the Israeli Defence Forces.
“About the security situation, let me be clear: it has completely collapsed. Totally gone. There’s no control anywhere,” he said.
“People looted the most powerful Hamas security apparatus (Ansar), the complex which Hamas used to rule Gaza. They looted everything, the offices – mattresses, even zinc panels – and no one intervened. No police, no security.
“Hamas’s control is zero. There’s no leadership, no command, no communication. Salaries are delayed, and when they do arrive, they’re barely usable. Some die just trying to collect them. It’s total collapse.”
Sources in Gaza said a clan militia led by Yasser Abu Shabab was co-ordinating with other families to topple Hamas. Mr Netanyahu has confirmed that Israel is arming Abu Shabab, saying in a video on his Instagram page: “What’s wrong with this? It is good. It saves the lives of Israeli soldiers.”
Abu Shabab said Hamas had placed a bounty on Abu Shabab’s head, fearing he could become a unifying figure for its enemies. “For 17 years, Hamas made enemies everywhere. If someone like Abu Shabab can rally those forces, that could be the beginning of the end for us,” he said.
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Israel, Hamas have different reasons for pursuing Gaza deal
The Australian / Wall Street Journal | Jared Malsin | 8 July 2025
Progress towards a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza follows a shift in the balance of power in the Middle East after June’s 12-day war between Israel and Iran.
If Israel and Hamas complete negotiations brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt, they would pause the nearly two-year-old war in Gaza, free Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and allow more humanitarian aid into the hunger-stricken enclave.
Israel’s military campaign against Iran has given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a window to negotiate.
The strikes on Iran followed more than a year in which Israel went on the offensive against Iran’s allies, weakening Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and contributing to the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria.
The Iran war, which set back Tehran’s nuclear program and demonstrated Israel’s military superiority over its main adversary in the region, could allow Netanyahu to push back on his right-wing coalition partners, who have threatened to abandon government if he ends the war in Gaza.
In Gaza, Hamas is under pressure from Palestinians demanding a reprieve from the crisis after more than three months in which Israel has restricted food and other supplies allowed into the enclave. Israel has also killed a series of top Hamas leaders in recent months. The Islamist group is also facing a cash crunch that is making it harder for it to pay its rank and file.
The new proposal calls for a temporary, 60-day ceasefire that would buy time for mediators to attempt to broker a permanent end to the war, which could prove far more difficult than a temporary pause. Israel and Hamas have paused fighting twice before, in November 2023 and in January.
“It’s not his preference, but Netanyahu has some interest in saying ‘OK, I now have a new victory narrative after Iran’,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli official and negotiator.
“He can only begin to test the waters on whether that gives him a pronounced-enough political bounce if he goes into a temporary ceasefire.”
Netanyahu has been under political pressure since Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1200 people and saw 250 hostages seized. He has sought to increase his chances of remaining in power after a public outcry over the security and intelligence failures that led to the attack, political analysts say.
Netanyahu has for years advocated for a hawkish policy on Iran, including possible military action.
In Gaza, Hamas is under pressure to accept a ceasefire from Palestinians who have had enough of the hunger and ever-present threat of airstrikes from Israeli forces.
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Anti-Semitic mobs must face truth of Hamas evil
After a torrid 21 months, signs of Middle East change are emerging
The Australian | Editorial | 8 July 2025
The publication of previously unreported details about Hamas’s depraved sexual violence against women as a weapon of war should shock a cynical world. First-hand testimony from 15 returned hostages from Gaza and 17 witnesses to the slaughter of 1200 Jews on October 7, 2023, reveals a widespread and systematic onslaught of sexual savagery. Evidence collected by the Dinah Project, funded partly by the British government, reveals that among the 1200 people slaughtered were the bodies of “young women stripped and tied to trees and poles, shot through the genitalia and in the head”, The Times reports. Gang rapes were followed by mutilation and execution. For those who survived and were taken hostage, the horror continued in captivity, with returnees telling of forced nudity, physical and verbal harassment, sexual assaults and threats of forced marriage. The Dinah Project’s findings put Hamas, and those who show an inkling of support for it, beyond the pale of civilised conduct. Ideologues who blindly support the Palestinian cause and blame Israel for Gaza’s woes need a reality check. The revelations must destroy for all time any Hamas claims to a role in post-war Gaza or a Palestine state.
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Donald Trump in Washington amid hopes for a US-brokered ceasefire, and negotiators sit down in Qatar to discuss details of a ceasefire – including the release of the remaining hostages as soon as possible – the gross inhumanity of Hamas over the past 21 months must never be forgotten. While callous pro-Palestinian mobs, some of whom are foolish to the point of delusion, chant “Death to the IDF” in Melbourne, other parts of Australia and in Britain, the Dinah Project’s findings prove it is Hamas, not the Israel Defence Forces, that is mainly responsible for the worst atrocities committed in almost two years of war. The violent anti-Semitism of those mobs runs counter to Western democratic interests and values – a point the leadership of free nations needs to drive home, especially among gullible young people swayed by malign social media operatives.
Demonstrations that intimidate and lead to violence against the Jewish community or any group of Australians, as lawyer Mark Leibler wrote in Monday’s paper, are inimical to this objective. “Silence is no longer an option, if it ever was, and nor is sitting back and waiting in the hope that when the war in the Middle East finally comes to an end, life will go back to normal … the only way we can stop this creeping breakdown of our society now is to reject it as a collective of people who care about our country,” he wrote.
If accurate, BBC reports that Hamas is in a state of collapse after months of Israeli strikes eliminating its leadership are testament to the competence and will of Israel and its defence forces. It fought its existential battle against the militant, Iranian-backed terrorist army in the face of widespread international opposition, even from traditional allies. Gaza’s powerful local clans reportedly are filling the gap. If Hamas is on its last legs – though fanatics desperate to revive it will be lurking – the rest of the world has the competence and determination of the IDF to thank. Israel continued the heavy lifting on Monday to the benefit of other Middle East and trading nations, destroying Houthi terror infrastructure in Yemen ports. The IDF targeted a cargo ship seized by the rebels in November 2023 on which they installed radar to track Red Sea shipping for attacks.
And in another sign of potential progress, five of the most powerful Palestinian officials in the West Bank city of Hebron have said they are willing to leave the Palestinian Authority and join the Abraham Accords, recognising the state of Israel for the first time. In a move aimed at peace, the sheiks have written to Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat expressing their desire to transform the West Bank’s largest city into an emirate that “recognises the state of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people”. Accepting Israel as a Jewish state goes further than the Palestinian Authority ever has, sweeping aside decades of rejection. After 21 months of horrendous suffering, including by thousands of Palestinians, in one of the world’s most fragile regions, it is a promising sign.
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As leaders fail us, we must stand united in fight against Jew hate
The Australian | Letters | 8 July 2025
When haters firebomb another synagogue and more cars, and protesters chant “death to the IDF”, then the time for the majority to sit back and watch is over (“Plea to nation’s leaders: unite to defeat this hate, 7/7).
The amount of protesting and increasing violence in Melbourne and other places is not a show of popularity for the cause, it is a sign that Australians are beginning to push back. More of us are seeing the denial of the atrocities perpetrated on October 7, 2023, and the hatred shown on October 9. It is very hard to stand up and be counted when it seems the rest of the world goes against what you believe to be right. But we must.
Start with something simple, such as wearing an Australian flag badge or T-shirt to show you are united against anti-Semitism or, what it should be called now, “Jew hatred”.
Let’s show each other there are more of us who believe in standing up against hate.
Joanne Foreman, Mansfield, Qld
The latest violent anti-Semitic attack on a Melbourne restaurant must surely invoke strong action against all perpetrators.
Instead, we have Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and Jewish MP Mark Dreyfus spinning out the same meaningless weasel words as support to our beleaguered Jewish Australians, Burke declaring the violence was “an attack on Australia”.
If that is the case, it suggests an act of war on our nation’s soil and would require calling in the troops to deter and deny threats to Australia. Unfortunately, it appears there is no one in government, either state or federal, who believes anti-Semitism is something we need to eradicate, not talk about.
Lynda Morrison, Bicton, WA
Without leadership, we all suffer.
Those of us who prize justice and caring for our neighbour also suffer pain and shock when seeing such appalling hatred shown towards the Jewish community.
Now, we have the shame of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu making the admonitions internationally that our own Prime Minister should have made years ago.
How can Anthony Albanese have any excuse for having neglected prompt and appropriate action?
Rosemary McGrath, Kensington, SA
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Media are the truest believers of Hamas lies
Daily Telegraph | Tim Blair | 8 July 2025
In an imaginary world of good, Hamas’s rape, slaughter, torture and kidnapping spree on October 7, 2023, should have disqualified Hamas from existence.
It should also have piled a mortal level of ridicule upon anybody supporting them.
But the opposite happened.
The murder of 1200 men, women and children on October 7 somehow gave credibility to deadly cowards. The international media immediately took the side of Hamas.
On October 17, 2023, just ten days after Hamas’s bestial butchery, an explosion at the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza killed a still-unknown number of people.
Hamas – the same gang that had raped and killed so many innocents not even a fortnight earlier – blamed Israel.
And the media believed them.
They believed Hamas, and they told Hamas’s story to the world. They even did Hamas the gentle favour of not referring directly to Hamas.
“Hundreds feared dead or injured in Israeli air strike on hospital in Gaza, Palestinian officials say,” the BBC reported. “Palestinian officials” are, of course, Hamas – brutal rulers of the Gaza Strip.
The New York Times wrote: “At least 500 people were killed by an Israeli air strike at a Gaza hospital, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.”
Again, the “Palestinian Health Ministry” is Hamas-controlled.
Many journalists took their cues from the United Nations, where Hamas-hugging delegates blamed Israel for “a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”.
Those same caring delegates, the UN noted, “also engaged in a series of interactive dialogues on the right to education, cultural rights and the impact of climate change on persons with albinism”.
No offence to albinos, Albanians or anybody who voted for Albo, but the UN needs to be oxygen-depleted. This is not a metaphor.
Of course, it soon emerged that the likely cause of the Al-Ahli Hospital disaster wasn’t a deliberate Israeli strike but a misfired Palestinian rocket.
“Rather than having been an Israeli attack on civilians,” the left-leaning Atlantic reported, “the balance of evidence suggests that it was a result of terrorists’ disregard for the lives of the people on whose behalf they claim to be fighting.”
Media corrections grudgingly followed. The New York Times admitted its hospital bombing report “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified”.
Jonathan Munro, deputy chief executive of BBC News, sought sympathy. “Somewhere along the line, human beings are going to make a mistake on a bit of output,” he said – that particular “bit of output” being an accusation of mass murder.
“When it gets magnified and is used as an example of getting things wrong,” Munro continued, “it’s a very uncomfortable place to be.”
Not as uncomfortable as Melbourne, though, where Hamas-friendly goons – possibly emboldened by media support for their savage anti-Jewish cause – are repeatedly attacking Jewish properties, businesses and places of worship.
It happened again last Friday. A synagogue’s door was set alight while worshippers were inside. A nearby Jewish restaurant was stormed by Palestinian activists.
And on Saturday, cars were set ablaze outside an Israel-connected business.
While this onslaught continues, the global press keeps publishing inflammatory Hamas lies.
“At least 31 people were killed Sunday morning in southern Gaza, according to the Strip’s health ministry,” the highbrow Washington Post reported last month, “when Israeli troops opened fire on crowds making their way to collect aid.”
It’s the Al-Ahli Hospital saga all over again, featuring barbaric Israelis and tragic civilians in a storyline provided by Hamas’s Gaza health ministry. Once that fable was viewed by 2.4 million readers, the usual correction was offered.
“The article failed to make it clear if attributing the deaths to Israel was the position of the Gaza health ministry or a fact verified by the Post,” the paper wrote. “The Post didn’t give proper weight to Israel’s denial and gave improper certitude about what was known about any Israeli role in the shootings.”
Here’s an idea: instead of placing trust in lunatics who rape and kill terrified girls at a music festival, maybe just don’t.
Not only would reports be more accurate, but Jews everywhere – including in Australia – would possibly be made significantly safer by a reduction in vicious dishonesty.
Obviously, an assumption is included in that advice. That assumption – a very generous one – being that the media would care for Jewish safety.
We’ll only know that to be true when the press stop treating Hamas as a source and instead see them for the demented killers they are.
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Dealing with a spiralling emergency
Daily Telegraph | Letters | 8 July 2025
If we are going to try and limit the increasing number of anti-Jewish terrorist acts, we need to deal with the perpetrators as terrorists.
They are inciting fear across the Jewish community and appears they are allowed to continue to do so.
We have politicians like Albo saying “we are acting on this problem”, while doing nothing at all.
The police try and control protests, but anyone arrested is given the lightest slap on the wrist possible, and sent on their way to continue as usual.
Enough talk, we need action to prevent this from just continuing.
Emanuel Dos Santos, Bulli
Our wonderful country offers equal rights and freedom for all citizens regardless of political or religious persuasions and the weakest form of debate and opposition is violence as demonstrated in attacks on Jewish property (“Attacks expose a worrying pattern”, DT, 7/7).
Regardless of the Jewish issue, if this could become a new form of protest, what targets might be next: churches or mosques?
Wake up Australia and get back to being the egalitarian success story we once were.
Brian Whybrow, Wanniassa, ACT
Anthony Albanese has a window of opportunity where he can silence his critics and prove to the nation he is a leader of substance.
The PM can prove he’s worthy of the role by producing a rare display of strength and resolving to effectively deal with the ongoing violent anti-Semitic assaults in Melbourne (“Outrage at attacks on Australia”, DT, 7/7)
He has curiously ignored a recent request from the US to increase our defence spending. We now have the Israeli PM Netanyahu issuing a plea to the government to take appropriate action and end the anti-Semitic rioting.
If Albo’s previous “form” is the criteria, don’t hold your breath, Bibi.
The four further attacks at the weekend, continue 91 weeks of similar anti-social protests that have largely gone unchecked. At the time of the latest attacks, the PM was delivering a speech, nominating himself unashamedly as a Curtin clone.
How dare he use such a comparison, when chaos continues under this government’s watch.
Meanwhile Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke continues his pathetic posturing, by declaring “every Australian has a view, and we probably have the same view”.
Just say the word and call it out Tony, it’s called anti-Semitism.
Labor’s state leader has become “absent Allan”, as she goes into hiding until fed the talking points she will employ when eventually emerging to deliver her tone-deaf response.
If Anthony Albanese had a filament of decency and concern for fellow Australians, he should immediately recall parliament and not wait until the extended break ends on July 22.
The reputation of our nation continues to diminish abroad, while the electorate is entitled to be furious with the impotence, skewed prioritising and inaction by this inept leadership that continues to let us down on significant national issues.
Graeme West, Marks Point
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Premier finally sees the damage
Herald-Sun | Alex White | 8 July 2025
A new task force will be set up in Victoria to tackle the worrying rise in anti-Semitism after the horror attack on the East Melbourne synagogue.
Premier Jacinta Allan visited the firebombed building on Monday, three days after it was set alight in a horrific anti-Semitic attack, accompanied by Deputy Premier Ben Carroll, Police Minister Anthony Carbines, and Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Ingrid Stitt.
Ms Allan spoke also with the rabbi and community members who were inside when the front entrance was set alight on Friday but quickly extinguished before taking hold.
Before seeing the damage face-to-face on Monday, the Victorian government had responded to the latest attack unveiling a new task force to be set up immediately to address the growing number of anti-Semitic and racially motivated incidents occurring in Victoria that are putting lives at risk.
“I’ll continue to stand with the strong, proud Jewish community here in Victoria every single day,” Ms Allan said after touring the building.
“If you consider just as the fire came to the front door here of this shule, but it was stopped, so too must we put a stop to hate, put a stop to anti-Semitism.
“Not only does it have no place in Melbourne and Victoria – it has no place anywhere.
“I’ll be guided by the community on what more they need in responding to this hateful incident on Friday evening.”
“That is why I will not rest. I will continue to take every action necessary to not just strengthen the law but to respond and lead in terms of how we as a community need to say very, very clearly that acts of hate, acts of violence, acts of anti-Semitism have no place here in Melbourne and Victoria.”
Ms Allan said the new task force would meet regularly and include Victoria Police members, along with Lord Mayor Nick Reece.
Members of the Jewish community will also be invited to attend and participate early on to help identify issues and risks.
The announcement came only a day after pro-Palestinian protesters, including children, chanted “Death to the IDF” at a restaurant after a demonstration in Melbourne.
It also follows the Adass Israel synagogue being firebombed in December.
A NSW man has been charged by counter-terror police in relation to the East Melbourne incident.
Angelo Loras, 34, from the western Sydney suburb of Toongabbie, was arrested in the Melbourne CBD at 8.15 pm on Saturday, 24 hours after the front of the Albert St place of worship was set alight. He is expected to face court next on July 22, via videolink.
The rabbi of the East Melbourne Synagogue, Rabbi Dovid Gutnick, condemned the arson attack and described it as a “wake-up call” for the community.
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Israeli minister blasts Albo: ‘this is test of moral leadership’
Herald-Sun | Shannon Deery | 8 July 2025
The Israeli government has ratcheted up the pressure on the Australian government, accusing it of emboldening the spread of anti-Semitism after a weekend of violence.
A day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for urgent action by the federal government, Amichai Chikli – Israel’s Minister of Diaspora and Combating Anti-Semitism – wrote to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese directly to press him to act without delay to tackle rising anti-Semitism in Melbourne.
In the letter, Mr Chikli described his “deep alarm following a profoundly disturbing weekend in Melbourne”. “Within hours, two anti-Semitic attacks occurred: the attempted arson of the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation during Shabbat services, and the violent storming of the Israeli-owned Miznon restaurant by masked individuals shouting ‘Death to the IDF’, overturning furniture and terrorising patrons,” he said.
“These are not isolated incidents … Australia has surged by over 320 per cent since October 7 (2023). More than 850,000 anti-Semitic or anti-Israel posts have been documented online, including widespread Holocaust inversion. Synagogues, Jewish businesses, and students on major campuses have all come under attack.’
Mr Chikli warned Mr Albanese that this “alarming climate is unfolding under your government’s watch”, saying it had been “further legitimised by recent decisions to deny entry to former Israeli minister Ayelet Shaked and pro-Israel advocate Hillel Fuld”.
“This is no longer a matter of rising tensions – it is a test of moral leadership,” he wrote. “When synagogues are burned and Jewish businesses attacked in central Melbourne, silence sends a dangerous message: that Jewish safety is negotiable. That message is unacceptable,” he wrote.
“I urge you to act now – clearly, publicly, and decisively.”
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Is offensive death chant an offence?
Herald-Sun | Anna Shreeves & Shannon Deery | 8 July 2025
Premier Jacinta Allan and Victoria Police cannot say if vile death chants used at Melbourne pro-Palestine rallies constitute a criminal offence as part of a new “anti-hate” crackdown.
The day after protesters marched through to the streets of Melbourne in what the Premier labelled as “particularly odious” behaviour, Ms Allan could not give a definitive answer as to whether anti-vilification laws would capture the “Death to IDF (Israeli Defence Force)” slogans being brandished by some demonstrators.
Asked if she thought anyone who was chanting or holding a sign saying “Death to IDF” should be charged under the anti-vilification laws, Ms Allan said she would “take advice from Victoria Police”. “(Police) will be briefing the task force this week on the operationalisation of the anti-vilification law and I will take their advice,” she said.
The Herald Sun put the same question to Victoria Police.
A spokeswoman said: “We are currently assessing whether the chant and slogan meets the threshold of a criminal offence.”
It’s understood the process may take a couple of days.
Amid the Premier’s announcement of a new anti-hate task force some members of the Jewish community called for more direct action.
Dr Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, said urgent and vigorous enforcement of new laws was needed.
“These unacceptable attacks on our community have been recurring for 21 months now, and it shouldn’t have taken the events of Friday night for this to now become an urgent priority,” he said.
“It is undeniable that there is a direct line between the incitement we see at the regular anti-Israel protests in the city and the violence that follows, so urgent action must be taken against this incitement and the protest leaders responsible.
“It is simply unacceptable that our Jewish community has had to live with these threats for 21 months, and especially felt unsafe to visit the city on weekends.
“If our existing laws are strong enough to deal with this pressing issue, they must be enforced without fear or favour, but if they are not strong enough, they must be strengthened until they are.”
Ms Allan slammed the decision by protesters to gather in the CBD for the weekly Free Palestine rally on Sunday.
“The behaviour we saw (on Sunday) was particularly odious. Hateful behaviour,” Ms Allan said. “Particularly odious in only what felt like moments after the attack on the synagogue on Friday night.”
The new task force is expected to meet this week.
Acting Lord Mayor Roshena Campbell said the city never wants to see scenes like last Friday night on our streets again.
“Racism and anti-Semitism in our city will not be tolerated,” Ms Campbell said.
“The right to protest peacefully does not extend to those who incite violence.
“Protests in Melbourne do not change the situation in Gaza, but they do disrupt the lives of people in Melbourne.”
Opposition Leader Brad Battin blamed government inaction for allowing hate crimes to go unchecked.
“Premier Allan promised in December to crack down on hate, protect places of worship, and deliver real outcomes – but seven months later, she’s delivered nothing but another task force,” Mr Battin said.
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Activists run riot here but their mates banned in UK
Herald-Sun | James Campbell | 8 July 2025
From the way they are carrying, on it’s hard not suspect that some elements of the pro-Palestinian movement in Melbourne would be happy to join their UK brethren in being banned under anti-terrorism legislation.
On Saturday, membership of or showing support for Palestine Action – the British activist group which has targeted companies with links to the IDF – became a criminal offence in the United Kingdom.
The UK government announced it planned to ban the “direct action” Leftist group after it vandalised aircraft at the Royal Air Force’s largest base, but it has also repeatedly targeted the Israeli defence company Elbit.
By coincidence, as the Palestine Action ban was coming into effect overnight in the UK, masked arsonists in Melbourne attacked Lovitt Technologies Australia in Greensborough which manufactures parts for the F35 stealth bomber used by the Israel Defence Forces.
The attacks took place on the same night as protesters targeted the Miznon Israeli restaurant in Hardware Lane and NSW man Angelo Loras allegedly attempted to firebomb the East Melbourne Synagogue.
The Whistleblowers, Activists and Citizens Alliance (WACA), a group founded more than a decade ago to support Julian Assange in his troubles with the US government, has been linked by the media to the attack on Miznon but has not claimed responsibility.
But its social media postings make clear that – despite its claim to be appalled by the synagogue firebombing – it wholeheartedly supports the East Melbourne and Greensborough attacks.
It wouldn’t be the first time that members of WACA have targeted companies with ties to the IDF. In 2014 the Melbourne Palestine Activist Group – of which WACA was a part – occupied the roof of Elbit’s Port Melbourne factory. In 2017 WACA blockaded its entrance.
The links between the Melbourne activists and their UK counterparts Palestine Action are no secret. WACA’s public spokeswoman was Sam Castro, who works for Friends of the Earth, and who in an interview last September complained that for most of the year “a global co-ordinate matrix” running the social media giants had been “disconnecting us from our friends like Palestine Action”.
Depressingly, if the direct action wing of Melbourne’s pro-Palestinian movement are hoping for the boost in publicity their UK cousins have received after being banned, they are likely to be disappointed.
Given that 18 months after the UK banned the anti-Semitic Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir it remains lawful here, what chance is there the Albanese government will move against a few dozen idiot fans of the PM’s mate Julian Assange?
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Hunt ramping up for hooded thugs who torched cars
Herald-Sun | Anna Shreeves & Grace Frost | 8 July 2025
Police have released footage of the moment a group of hooded offenders vandalised and set fire to multiple cars in the latest of a string of shocking anti-Semitic attacks in Melbourne.
A manhunt is under way for five hooded offenders who entered Lovitt Technologies Australia on Para Rd, Greensborough just before 4am on Saturday.
CCTV shows the group — dressed in black hooded jumpers, gloves and carrying backpacks — setting fire to the underbelly of cars before using red paint to tag the vehicles and walls of the business.
One of the cars was destroyed, while the other two vehicles copped damage.
Detectives say the group fled the scene via the back fence before they mounted electric bicycles and rode southwest along Plenty River.
The Greensborough car torchings rampage was the third anti-Semitic attack in Melbourne over the weekend.
Police have charged a man from western Sydney in relation to the fire at a synagogue in East Melbourne after the front of the Albert St place of worship was set alight with 20 people inside on Friday night.
In another shocking incident, a large mob of protesters stormed an Israeli-owned restaurant in Hardware Lane, creating havoc and forcing diners to flee in terror. Investigators are still yet to establish if there are any connections between those incidents and the attack in Greensborough.
“There is absolutely no place at all in our society for anti-Semitic behaviour,” police said in a statement on Monday morning.
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Your Say
Herald-Sun | Letters | 8 July 2025
Culture of hate
The firebombing of a Jewish synagogue and the violent assault on an Israeli restaurant are the latest testament to a growing social culture of violent anti-Semitic hate that has overtaken the inner precinct of our city (“Attack on Australia”, HS, 7/7).
A weekly protest by anti-police and other activist groups has become a campaign of hate by a coalition of aggressive and dangerous left-wing malcontents that is alarmingly now ingrained in today’s social fabric of Melbourne.
Downtown Melbourne is a no-go zone for peace-loving, vulnerable Victorians on the weekend.
I am thankful that the generation of my father and his Digger mates who fought for all Australians in World War II and were wounded at Benghazi in the Middle East are no longer with us to witness this tragedy.
John Bell, Heidelberg Heights
Weak response
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke is mouthing words of support for the Australian Jewish community, but actions speak far louder than words (“Outrage at attacks on Australia”, HS, 7/7).
The Albanese government has offered a weak response every time a violent incident has been perpetrated by purveyors of hatred against Jewish people.
How sad that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been forced to demand that our government take strong action to protect Jewish citizens.
Innocent Australians are being terrorised and our international standing is being damaged through government inaction.
Peter Curtis, Werribee South
Hamas against peace
“Hamas wants to talk” (HS, 7/7), said your headline.
Hasn’t this scenario played out many times over the years, with a ceasefire followed by a period of relative calm, but then the terrorists regroup and the attacks begin again?
Before any ceasefire, shouldn’t Israel demand that Hamas end their desire to destroy the Jewish state?
Or maybe it’s not in their interests to do so?
Christo Krousoratis, Templestowe
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Tale of two nights: light & dark for Jewish people
Herald-Sun | Amanda Miller | 8 July 2025
Last Friday night, I sat in the warmth and glow of Shabbat candles at the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, Australia’s oldest mainland synagogue.
About 60 members of St John’s Anglican Church Toorak joined our community for a Shabbat service, a tour of our beautiful synagogue, and a shared Shabbat dinner.
Together, we prayed, sang, and shared blessings. We spoke about our traditions, our history, and the meaning of Shabbat, a ritual that has sustained our people for generations.
At dinner, conversations flowed freely – about faith, family, and how much our communities have in common. It was not simply a meal; it was a profound moment of connection and mutual respect.
The Reverend Dr Peter French, the vicar at St John’s Anglican Church who spoke on the night, assured our community he would pray, with us, for “peace, tolerance and joy to be the hallmarks of our shared Melbourne society”.
The presence of the St John’s community was a powerful show of solidarity at a time when such gestures mean more than ever.
To see friends from outside the Jewish community choose to stand with us – to show up in person, to listen, to learn, and to support – was both moving and deeply comforting.
At a time when so many in our community feel isolated and unsafe, their decision to stand with us – to be there, shoulder to shoulder – reminded us that goodness is still present, that bridges can still be built, and that we are not alone.
In the words of Mr French: “Your welcome this evening is all the more powerful – and timely – when too many in our world and our community seek to hate rather than love, divide rather than unite, disturb or denigrate rather than comfort and raise up.”
Yet, while we broke bread and shared stories, darkness was unfolding just streets away.
At precisely the same moment,
the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation was set alight in an attempted arson attack. And at the same time, Miznon, a Jewish-owned, Israeli-themed restaurant on Hardware Lane in the city centre, was violently targeted by masked pro-Palestinian protesters chanting “Death, death to the IDF” and “Heil Hitler”, causing violent chaos and terror.
The contrast between these
hatred-filled incidents, and our peaceful Shabbat of solidarity, could not have been more jarring, or more symbolic of the moment we’re living in. This is the reality for Jews in Melbourne today: moments of hope and connection shining alongside fear and hatred.
We are deeply grateful for allies such as those from St John’s, who remind us that we are not alone.
Their solidarity provides light in our darkness, and it renews our hope that bridges can still be built, even in times of great division.
Yet we cannot ignore the rising
tide of anti-Semitism in our city and our country that is now part of our daily lives.
Nor can we ignore the painful reality that many in our community feel abandoned, by the silence of those who claim to support us, and by the inaction of those entrusted to protect us.
We often hear that there is a “silent majority” of Australians who support our community and reject hatred and violence. But too often, that support remains just that – silent.
We need it to become visible.
We need it to translate into public acts of solidarity and vocal rejection of the anti-Semitism that threatens the social fabric for all Australians. We need to hear it. We need to feel it.
Surely the love in our city is greater and more abundant than the hate.
Yet so often, it’s the hate that we feel most sharply – loud, threatening, impossible to ignore.
We need the love to be louder.
We need it to come forward, to wash away the hatred, to drown it out, and to make it clear that there is no place for such darkness in our shared home.
Solidarity matters. Interfaith connection matters.
But they are not enough on their own. They must be matched by meaningful government action,
to uphold safety, protect vulnerable communities, and ensure that hate has no home here.
Our city, our country, must choose which story it wants to write: one of light, unity, and mutual respect,
or one where violent hatred is allowed to flourish unchecked, putting all of us at risk.
The events of Friday night make it clear that the time to choose is now.
Amanda Miller OAM is a Melbourne philanthropist, impact investor and community leader
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Weak on anti-Semitism
Courier-Mail | Letters | 8 July 2025
Weak on anti-Semitism
I refer to Warren Brown’s cartoon depicting Albo asleep at the wheel of a tank (C-M, 7/7).
What would it take for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to “wake up” to the ever-increasing simmering pot of anti-Semitism in our society before he acts with an iron fist to curb it in its tracks?
These are serious incidents that are occurring in our country and those whose heritage (such as my Polish heritage) is steeped in World War II have heightened concerns as we all know history repeats itself should no lessons be learnt.
The PM seems to always imitate an ostrich when solid decisions need to be made to stop this anti-Semitism in our society.
Where are the strong punishments?
Where are the security measures to keep the Jewish community safe?
Do not pander to this type of hatred by ignoring it or throwing insipid words at it that fail to mark its mark.
Should the PM not govern with an iron-fist on these important issues it will only be a matter of time before other sections of the community will be targeted.
Swift, stronger laws must be put in place now to protect and punish those who attack the innocent in our free, democratic society.
Send a message that we will not continue to let the Jewish community suffer and be afraid.
Susan McLochlan, Caboolture South
Reading much of the commentary on the recent spate of attacks on Jewish properties in Melbourne one might think the Labor Victorian and federal governments were somehow to blame for not doing enough.
It is easy to accuse governments of failing to stamp-out anti-Semitism, and for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to demand “The Australian government must take all action … to the full extent of the law”, but what more can be done?
Victoria already has an Anti-Vilification and Social Cohesion Act, but the key to prevention is the much more difficult task of identifying and restraining all likely and currently unknown perpetrators before they act.
Our laws allow peaceful protests, eg at the apparent overkill of civilians in Gaza in response to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, and any pro-Palestinian activist or opportunistic neo-Nazi foolish enough to spout hate speech openly can be charged and detained.
Misdirected blame and too much loud publicity is likely to incite more undercover activity by the haters, and we should keep cool and steady nerves while police and allied security agencies identify all those associated with recent events and their motives, and apply the full force of the law.
Anti-Semitism has been with the world for millennia and won’t go away easily.
Donald Maclean, Fig Tree Pocket
Protests hijacked
Your Editorial (C-M, 7/7) was a well-written piece about the evils of anti-Semitism.
That said, I am not convinced that all the recent attacks in Sydney and Melbourne come from committed anti-Semites.
Rather, I think that pro-Palestinian activism has created a lightning rod for a disparate group of anarchists, socialist collectivists and general malcontents.
It enables them to align themselves with a cause that they believe legitimises their actions and allows them to perpetrate violence.
The 21st century has given these far left and far-right groups little to satisfy their warped and socially destructive view of the world.
These pseudo-activists pretend that they are taking actions against a pariah state.
They do not seem to differentiate between the actions of a sovereign nation and people of Jewish ethnicity.
But then again, why would they want to?
When violence is the goal, soft targets are always the go-to option.
Peter Stirk, Holland Park
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Israeli plan for forced transfer of Gaza’s population ‘a blueprint for crimes against humanity’
Military ordered to turn ruins of Rafah into ‘humanitarian city’ but experts call the plan an internment camp for all Palestinians in Gaza
The Guardian | Emma Graham-Harrison | 8 July 2025
Israel’s defence minister has laid out plans to force all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp on the ruins of Rafah, in a scheme that legal experts and academics described as a blueprint for crimes against humanity.
Israel Katz said he has ordered Israel’s military to prepare for establishing a camp, which he called a “humanitarian city”, on the ruins of the city of Rafah, Haaretz newspaper reported.
Palestinians would go through “security screening” before entering, and once inside would not be allowed to leave, Katz said at a briefing for Israeli journalists.
Israeli forces would control the perimeter of the site and initially “move” 600,000 Palestinians into the area – mostly people currently displaced in the al-Mawasi area.
Eventually the entire population of Gaza would be housed there, and Israel aims to implement “the emigration plan, which will happen”, Haaretz quoted him saying.
Since Donald Trump suggested at the start of the year that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza to “clean out” the strip, Israeli politicians including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, have enthusiastically promoted forced deportation, often presenting it as a US project.
Katz’s scheme breaks international law, said Michael Sfard, one of Israel’s leading human rights lawyers. It also directly contradicted claims made hours earlier by the office of Israel’s military chief, which said in a letter that Palestinians were only displaced inside Gaza for their own protection.
“(Katz) laid out an operational plan for a crime against humanity. It is nothing less than that,” Sfard said. “It is all about population transfer to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip in preparation for deportation outside the strip.
“While the government still calls the deportation ‘voluntary’, people in Gaza are under so many coercive measures that no departure from the strip can be seen in legal terms as consensual.
“When you drive someone out of their homeland that would be a war crime, in the context of a war. If it’s done on a massive scale like he plans, it becomes a crime against humanity,” Sfard added.
Katz laid out his plans for Gaza shortly before Netanyahu arrived in Washington DC for meetings with Donald Trump, where he will be under heavy pressure to agree a ceasefire deal to end or at least pause the 21-month war.
Work on the “humanitarian city” at the heart of Katz’s plans could start during a ceasefire, the defence minister said. Netanyahu is leading efforts to find countries willing to “take in” Palestinians, he added.
Israeli politicians including the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, have also been enthusiastic advocates of new Israeli settlements in Gaza.
Plans for the construction of camps called “humanitarian transit areas”, to house Palestinians inside and possibly outside Gaza, had previously been presented to the Trump administration and discussed in the White House, Reuters reported on Monday.
The $2bn plan bore the name of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), Reuters said. GHF denied it had submitted a proposal and said slides seen by Reuters, which laid out the plan, “are not a GHF document”.
Concerns about Israel’s plans to displace Palestinians had previously been raised by military orders for the operation launched this spring.
Sfard represented three reservists who filed a petition to Israel’s courts, demanding the military revoke commands to “mobilise and concentrate” the civilian population of Gaza, and to prohibit any plans for the deportation of Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip.
In a letter responding to their claims, the office of Israel’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, said that displacing Palestinians or concentrating the population in one part of Gaza were not among the objectives of the operation.
That statement was directly contradicted by Katz, said Prof Amos Goldberg, historian of the Holocaust at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The defence minister laid out clear plans for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Goldberg said, and the creation of “a concentration camp or a transit camp for Palestinians before they expel them”.
“It is neither humanitarian nor a city,” he said of Katz’s planned holding area for Palestinians.
“A city is a place where you have possibilities of work, of earning money, of making connections and freedom of movement.
“There are hospitals, schools, universities and offices. This is not what they have in mind. It will not be a livable place, just as the ‘safe areas’ are unliveable now.”
Katz’s plan also raised the immediate question of what would happen to Palestinians who refused to follow Israeli orders to move into the new compound, said Goldberg.
He added: “What will happen if the Palestinians will not accept this solution and revolt, because they are not completely helpless?”
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Palestinians fear razing of villages in West Bank, as settlers circle their homes
An Israeli directive gives a green light for demolitions in Masafer Yatta, where residents keep watch at night for attackers in the darkness
The Guardian | William Christou & Quique Kierszenbaum | 8 July 2025
Ali Awad is tired. The 27-year-old resident of Tuba, one of the dozen or so villages that make up Masafer Yatta in the arid south Hebron hills of the occupied West Bank, had been up all night watching as a masked Israeli settler on horseback circled his family home.
“When we saw the masked settler, we knew he wanted violence,” said Awad, his eyes bloodshot. They were lucky this time: the settler disappeared into the darkness before police could show up.
The men in Masafer Yatta rarely sleep these days. They take turns standing watch at night, fearful that nearby Israeli settlers will attack under the cover of darkness.
Daylight brings little respite. Residents work with an ear pricked up for the sound of approaching vehicles, scanning the horizon for Israeli bulldozers which could signal their homes are next to be demolished.
Israel designated Masafer Yatta a military training zone – named firing zone 918, where no civilians can live – in 1981. It has been working since to push out the roughly 1,200 residents who remain. These residents have been fighting in Israeli courts for more than two decades to stop their expulsion, a battle which has slowed, but not stopped, the demolition of Palestinian homes there.
Recently, an Israeli administrative body issued a decision which legal experts and activists have said could remove the last remaining legal barriers for the demolition of homes in Masafer Yatta. The decision could lead to the forcible transfer of 1,200 people, something the UN warned could be a war crime.
“This would amount to forcible transfer, which is a war crime. It could also amount to a crime against humanity if committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack,” the UN human rights office said on 26 June.
On 18 June, the civil administration’s central planning bureau, the Israeli military agency that issues construction permits in occupied Palestinian territories, issued a directive that all pending building requests in Masafer Yatta be rejected.
Previously, residents could file building planning requests and, while they were being examined, their structures could not legally be demolished. By cancelling all pending requests, the new directive dismisses all previously submitted cases without examining their particularities and gives demolitions the green light.
The decision was made at the same time as Israeli authorities are pursuing sharply increased numbers of demolitions across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, destroying 933 structures since the beginning of the year, a record-breaking pace, according to UN data. As structures are demolished, more Palestinians are killed in the West Bank, with at least 950 killed and 9,000 injured by Israeli forces and settlers since the start of the war in Gaza on 7 October 2023, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The new directive cites a military planning document issued a day earlier, which said that firing zone 918 was necessary for combat preparedness and that the presence of civilian structures prevented training exercises.
The document says: “The practical condition for such [military training] access is the removal of the unauthorised constructions, thus enabling the IDF to conduct its training … No construction in the firing zone can be permitted.” It adds that for live-fire exercises to be conducted, the area needs to be “sterile”.
According to a lawyer representing residents of Masafer Yatta, Netta Amar-Shiff, the new directive bypasses a previous legal ruling and abrogates local laws, and could rapidly expedite the destruction of villages.
“If this directive is activated, it means planning institutions can dismiss building requests under military auspices, so no civilian construction and development can be approved. It’s easier for them to eliminate entire villages,” Amar-Shiff said.
Humanitarian organisations have long accused Israel of establishing firing zones as an excuse to push Palestinians off their land and expand settlement construction. About 18% of Area C, the parts of the West Bank under full Israeli control, has been designated as firing zones.
According to government meeting minutes in 1981, the then agriculture minister and future PM, Ariel Sharon, proposed the creation of firing zone 918 with the purpose of forcing Palestinians out of the area.
In the meeting, Sharon told the IDF he wanted to expand shooting zones “in order to keep these areas … in our hands”, pointing to “the expansion of the Arab villagers” in the area.
In a comment, the Israeli military said the civil administration was “holding ongoing discussions regarding villages built within the boundaries of firing zone 918” and that the military had a “vital need for the area”.
“As a general rule, no approval will be granted for construction within the firing zone, which is designated as a closed military area,” the Israeli military said in a statement to the Guardian, adding that building permit requests were subject to approval by military command.
To Awad, last week’s decision is the latest attempt in a long line of court decisions and policies by the Israeli government to expel the residents of Masafer Yatta from their homes.
In May 2022, Israel’s high court ruled that the residents could be expelled and the land repurposed for military use, as it said villagers were not permanent residents of the area before the firing zone was declared. Residents and lawyers, relying on expert testimony and literature, said they had inhabited the area for decades.
“This decision was a clear way of cutting the last nerve of life that these people had,” said Awad, calling it part of a larger policy of “ethnic cleansing of Palestinians”.
Awad and the other residents of Masafer Yatta have spent more than two decades filing petitions, appeals, proposing master plans and submitting documents to try to fight the destruction of their community.
“We tried for many years to supply different documents and proofs and plans to the courts. But, after years of this, a commander in the army says no and that’s enough,” said Nidal Younis, head of the Masafer Yatta council, in a press briefing late last month.
As the residents navigate Israel’s labyrinthine bureaucracy to stave off demolition orders, settlers have acted as the extrajudicial vanguard of displacement, making daily life nearly intolerable for Palestinians.
Almost every single resident has a story about being harassed or attacked by nearby settlers, whose presence has been slowly growing, with new outposts popping up on the area’s hilltops.
In the early hours of 25 June, settlers set fire to Nasser Shreiteh’s home in the town of Susiya, burning his kitchen and a bedroom almost entirely, running off as he tried to extinguish the fire.
“They want to evict everyone, they want everyone to disappear. But I am here, if they burn my house down, I will stay here, I have no other place to go,” said Shreiteh, a 50-year-old with seven children, as he overlooked the charred remains of his kitchen.
As he spoke, an Israeli military patrol passed and behind it roared a beaten-up sedan driven by settlers, swerving in circles as the car’s trunk swung open. They pulled up to Shreiteh’s driveway and made an obscene hand gesture before driving off.
Incidents of settler violence in the area have sharply increased since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war in Gaza. The rise of the far-right, extremist ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir has provided political cover, allowing settlers to act with virtual impunity.
Many settlers have been called to military reserves, where they serve around their settlements. Residents of Masafer Yatta said settlers would often walk around in military dress, such as combat trousers, which made it impossible to tell whether they were dealing with settlers or soldiers.
Settler violence has escalated the tighter residents have clung to their land. In late January, settlers torched Awad’s car, which he had used to transport children to school and residents to legal hearings.
Souad al-Mukhamari, a 61-year-old resident of Sfai, another village in Masafer Yatta, complained that one of her granddaughters, a child, had been beaten and pepper-sprayed by a settler a month earlier. Her own home overlooked the debris of a school that was demolished in 2022.
Palestinians can do little to protect themselves from settler violence, and are severely punished if they attempt to do so. They complain that Israeli authorities fail to protect them and do not follow up on their complaints.
Legal advocates have said they expect little protection from Israel’s legal system, but instead are looking to the international community to increase pressure on Israel to halt settlement construction and protect the rights of Palestinians.
“We don’t see any possibility of internal change within Israel to protect these communities,” said Sarit Michaeli, an international advocacy officer at the Israeli human rights group B’tselem. “The only way to stop this is whether there is clear international action to clarify to Israeli policymakers that actions have consequences,” she added.
The Trump administration has expressed little interest in addressing illegal settlement construction and violence, lifting Biden-era sanctions on settlers. Instead, Michaeli said the EU could play a role in pressuring Israeli officials, especially as it announced at the end of May that it is reviewing its association agreement with Israel over human rights compliance concerns.
As residents of Masafer Yatta wait for international action, they live under the constant threat of displacement and settler violence, their means of resistance all stripped away one at a time. Still, they are determined to stay.
“Just mentally we are preparing for more demolitions. There’s nothing more on the ground we can do, besides putting our words in the media so they can reach farther than we can scream,” Awad said.
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Netanyahu returns to White House holding all the cards in Gaza talks
Joint attack on Iran puts Israeli PM in powerful position as he dangles prospect of Trump-brokered ceasefire deal
The Guardian | Andrew Roth | 7 July 2025
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/07/netanyahu-israel-iran-gaza-white-house-analysis
Donald Trump will host Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington DC on Monday as the US president seeks again to broker a peace deal in Gaza and the Israeli prime minister takes a victory lap through the Oval Office after a joint military campaign against Iran and a series of successful strikes against Tehran and its proxies in the Middle East.
Netanyahu and Trump have a complex personal relationship – and Trump openly vented frustration at him last month during efforts to negotiate a truce with Iran – but the two have appeared in lockstep since the US launched a bombing run against Iran’s nuclear programme, fulfilling a key goal for Israeli war planners.
Netanyahu arrives in Washington in a strong political position, observers have said, potentially giving him the diplomatic cover he would need to end the war in Gaza without facing a revolt from his rightwing supporters that could lead to the collapse of his government.
Hamas this week responded “positively” to a 60-day Israeli ceasefire proposal. But its negotiators have sought for Israel to guarantee a permanent end to the war and to manage the distribution of aid in Gaza through the UN, rather than the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has had a tumultuous rollout marred by near-daily incidents of Israeli soldiers opening fire on civilians gathering near its distribution sites, killing hundreds of people.
Israel has said the proposed changes to a ceasefire proposal are unacceptable, but Netanyahu has said he will nonetheless send negotiators to Qatar for indirect talks with Hamas. Before boarding his flight to the US on Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel had an opportunity “to expand the circle of peace far beyond what we could have imagined”.
Netanyahu also said Israeli negotiators heading to ceasefire talks in Qatar had clear instructions to achieve a ceasefire agreement under conditions Israel had accepted, Reuters reported, and added that Trump could help achieve those goals.
“We have already transformed the Middle East beyond recognition, and we now have a chance to bring a great future to the people of Israel and the Middle East,” he said.
Those will be the first talks in six weeks and Trump has told reporters he is very optimistic about the potential for a ceasefire. “There could be a Gaza deal next week,” Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One on Friday.
Before the meetings, Netanyahu’s top strategic adviser, Ron Dermer, huddled with the US vice-president, JD Vance, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the US envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, for consultations in Washington. During those meetings, the Guardian has been told, the two sides discussed postwar conditions that would allow Israel to banish Hamas from the Gaza Strip and task the international community with responsibility for its rebuilding.
“We have no interest to stay in Gaza,” Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Damon, said in response to a question from the Guardian. “I think we will make sure that in terms of security, we have the ability to act in Gaza, very similar to what’s happening today in Judea and Samaria,” territories known internationally as the occupied West Bank.
Hamas has pushed for guarantees from the US that Israel will end the war permanently. Damon, however, said an initial 60-day ceasefire was “not a commitment for ending the war”, and that further discussions on a permanent ceasefire would take place in that period.
“We’re going to have to think about the mechanism which will allow Israel to declare that the war is over, will allow international organisations and other players to step in and we make sure that Hamas is not there,” he said.
US and Israeli officials have said they believe the military campaign in Gaza – which has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians – has allowed Netanyahu to effectively dictate terms to Hamas and that the group has very little leverage in negotiations.
The latest version of the deal would have Hamas release 28 Israeli hostages – 10 alive and 18 bodies – over the course of the 60-day ceasefire. The UN and Palestine Red Crescent Society would be given additional licence to expand aid operations in Gaza. The Israeli army would withdraw first from parts of northern Gaza, and one week later would pull out from parts of the south.
The deal would leave approximately 22 hostages, 10 of them alive, still held in Gaza.
Netanyahu has boasted that his expected meetings in Washington with Trump and other senior officials, including Vance, the secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, and Rubio, were in part achieved by Israel’s readiness to confront Iran.
“These come in the wake of the great victory that we achieved,” Netanyahu said in remarks to the Israeli government. “Taking advantage of the success is no less an important part of achieving the success.”
A key question is whether Trump’s patience with Netanyahu will last. He has at times been frustrated with the slow pace of negotiations over the Gaza ceasefire. “MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!! DJT,” he wrote on social media a week ago.
And as he sought to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Iran last week, he had what looked like a minor meltdown as he complained on the White House lawn: “[Iran] violated [the ceasefire] but Israel violated it, too … I’m not happy with Israel,” he said. “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”
As Netanyahu comes to Washington on Monday for the third time since Trump’s inauguration, he appears to know exactly what he is doing. And while Trump has touted his bona fides as a dealmaker, the decision for when and how a ceasefire is implemented in Gaza appears ultimately out of his hands.
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