PM slams Israel over Gaza starvation
The Age (& SMH) | Paul Sakkai | 30 July 2025
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has signalled he believes Gaza will be freed from Hamas’ rule, paving the way for recognition of a Palestinian state, as he slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims that Gazans were not starving.
Asked by pro-Palestine back bencher Ed Husic on the time line for Australia to recognise a Palestinian state in the Labor caucus on Tuesday, Albanese repeated his criticism of Hamas’ role in prolonging the conflict but implored Israel to end the violence.
“While there is a caveat on any information provided by Hamas, it is Israel that has pre vented any journalists getting in,” Albanese said. “Those claims that there is no starvation are beyond comprehension.”
He was directly referring to remarks from deputy Israeli ambassador to Australia Amir Meron, who told journalists in a briefing on Monday that claims of starvation amounted to Hamas propaganda and relied on “false pictures” presenting a distorted view.
Albanese also made reference to similar remarks from Netanyahu, who said on Monday there was “no starvation in Gaza”, putting him at odds with aid agencies, the United Nations and widely shared images of malnourished children.
Husic lost his ministry after the election, freeing him to be more outspoken on the situation in Gaza. It is rare for MPs to ask challenging questions of the prime minister in Labor’s caucus meetings.
Albanese has emphasised in recent days Australia would only recognise a state if certain conditions were met, including the removal of Hamas as a governing force from the strip it has ruled since 2007.
But responding to Husic, the prime minister quoted former South African president Nelson Mandela in saying that things can seem impossible until they are not. This was taken by some MPs, who spoke on condition of anonymity, that Albanese believed Gaza could be freed from Hamas’ control.
Asked about Albanese’s comments yesterday afternoon, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said she was distressed by the images coming out of Gaza before calling for the return of the Israeli hostages.
“I’m pleased to see that aid is f lowing further and better into Gaza, and I really encourage everyone who sees the situation for the reality it is, to remind others that Hamas’ control of the hostages could end the war tomorrow,” Ley said.
Albanese’s comments in the Labor caucus discussion came a day after Meron said Israel did not recognise any famine or starvation in Gaza.
“This is a false campaign that is being [led] by Hamas, taking advantage of sick children in order to show a false claim and false presentation of hunger and starvation,” Meron said.
Netanyahu had earlier said it was a “bald-faced lie” that Israel was causing starvation. US President Donald Trump has since demanded Israel allow “every ounce of food” into the besieged strip and said there was “real starvation”.
“We can save a lot of people, I mean some of those kids. That’s real starvation; I see it and you can’t fake that. So we’re going to be even more in volved,” Trump said during a visit to Britain this week.
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Premier attacks ‘antisemitic’ NGV protesters
The Age | Daniella White | 30 July 2025
Premier Jacinta Allan has la belled pro-Palestine protesters who rallied outside the National Gallery of Victoria on Sunday as “extremists” who brought antisemitism to the streets of Melbourne.
The demonstrators targeted the gallery, which was forced into lockdown, because of do nations it has received from well-known Jewish philanthropists John and Pauline Gandel.
Hundreds of activists marched through the city to the NGV on Sunday afternoon, and one witness reported being yelled at by protesters and accused of supporting Zionism and genocide by entering the gallery.
Videos circulating online show protesters writing slogans in chalk on the gallery’s exterior walls, including “NGV funded by Zionists”, as well as turning the pond outside the NGV red.
The activists held banners saying “Zionism = fascism” and “blood on your hands”, while others chanted: “NGV, you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide”.
Allan yesterday condemned the protest and said the demonstrators were shameful and “cloaking their extremism under the conflict of the Middle East”.
“Victorians are blessed to have the generosity of philanthropic generosity from families like the Gandels,” she said. “That generosity, that philanthropy enriches us all and that behaviour we saw where antisemitism came to the street on the National Gallery was just disgraceful.
“It is shameful behaviour and I condemn it because the generosity of the Gandels, it’s enriched my family.
“Those people who choose to cloak their extremism under the conflict of the Middle East are shameful and should be condemned.”
Allan’s comments were in stark contrast to those from Multicultural Affairs Minister Ingrid Stitt, who on Monday said people had the right to protest peacefully, infuriating senior Jewish leaders.
“You do have the right to peacefully protest. We can’t necessarily always impact what happens … in other countries around the world, but what we can do is all ensure that people in Victoria act appropriately, in accordance with the law and respectfully,” Stitt said.
Victoria’s new police chief, Mike Bush, said he watched part of the protest as he walked through Swanston Street and it was peaceful from start to finish. “It was peaceful as it walked through Swanston Street. It was loud, there were a lot of people there, they were entitled to do that,” he told ABC Radio on Monday.
“But I was very proud of the way our people prevented any further harm. Yes, there was an inconvenience to the public [police closing the front entrance of the NGV], so I was proud of how [police] did that to prevent any disturbance or harm or violence.”
The protest was organised days after a blog post written by an anti-Israeli activist was published and circulated, alleging the NGV held a “secret, extravagant Zionist dinner” to celebrate Pauline Gandel’s 90th birthday, attended by Israel’s ambassador to Australia.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said the pro testers were “beneath contempt”.
“No matter how they try to spin it, targeting two Jewish Australians in their 90s who have contributed enormously to this country and have devoted their lives to uplifting others is gutter activism rooted in racial prejudice and jealousy,” he said.
But Greens leader Ellen Sandell said governments should be doing everything in their power to pressure Israel to allow trucks of aid into Gaza “rather than demonising peaceful protesters who are simply trying to do everything in their power to call it out”.
The Gandels have funded institutions and organisations in Israel, according to the Gandel Foundation website. In an interview with the Australian Financial Review after the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas in southern Israel, John Gandel said Israel had no choice but to go “all out” in its war in Gaza.
“If they don’t go all out, it means they withdraw. They can’t do it gently,” Gandel told the AFR. The Gandels were contacted for comment.
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Trump disputes Israel food claims
The Age (& SMH) | David Crowe | 30 July 2025
US President Donald Trump has called on Israel to speed up the flow of food to families in Gaza and set a new deadline for Russia to end the war in Ukraine, urgently intensifying his demands on both global flashpoints.
Trump aired his frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin by revoking his earlier deadline of 50 days to ensure a ceasefire in Ukraine, declaring in Scotland on Monday (yesterday AEST) that the new dead line would be just 10 or 12 days.
With the war in Gaza causing widespread hunger, Trump disputed Israel’s claim there was no starvation and said he wanted to ensure food was sent urgently to civilians in the war zone.
Asked whether he agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said there was no starvation in Gaza, Trump replied: “I don’t know. Based on television, I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry.” He later said: “Some of those kids that’s real starvation stuff. I see it, and you can’t fake that.”
The comments, made in a wide-ranging press conference with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, conveyed a more assertive message on the two conflicts when Britain and the European Union are hoping for an urgent White House intervention to stop the wars.
Speaking to the media alongside Starmer for almost an hour at his Turnberry golf course, Trump also attacked wind power, claimed he won last year’s presidential election on migration concerns and denied drawing a birthday greeting for child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
On Ukraine, his move brings forward the prospect of secondary tariffs on Russia and its allies that would tax their exports at 100 per cent, a severe penalty on China and India if the US president acts on the threat.
Trump set a 50-day deadline for Putin this month, giving the Russian leader until September 2 to stop firing missiles and drones at Ukrainian civilians and agree to a peace deal. “I’m going to make a new deadline of about 10 or 12 days from today,” Trump said in Scotland. “There’s no reason in waiting, there’s no reason in waiting. It’s 50 days, I want to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made.”
Repeating his previous exasperation with Putin, the president said the Russian leader would make claims about peace in their conversations but continue bombing Ukraine at night. “Russia could be so rich, instead they spend all their money on war,” he said. “I thought he’d want to end this thing quickly, but every time I think it’s going to end, he kills people.”
Asked if he wanted to meet Putin to end the war, Trump said he was “not so interested” in talking. If he acts on his new deadline, the secondary tariffs could begin on or around August 9.
Putin ally and former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, in a social media post, said Trump was playing “a game of ultimatums” that could lead to a war involving the US. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, welcomed the new timing. “I thank President Trump for his focus on saving lives and stop ping this horrible war,” he posted.
On Gaza, the joint remarks in Scotland marked another escalation in the calls on Israel to help civilians when the British Red Cross estimates that 470,000 people in Gaza face starvation – equivalent to 22 per cent of the population.
Trump said Israel had a “lot of responsibility” to help the situation despite being hampered by Hamas, which still holds 20 Israeli hostages from the October 7, 2023 attacks, when the terrorist group killed 1195 people and took more than 250 captive.
Trump suggested it was up to Netanyahu to ensure civilians were fed. “We’re giving money and things. He’s got to sort of, like, run it,” he said. “I want them to make sure they get the food. I want to make sure they get the food, every ounce of food … Because food isn’t being delivered.”
Starmer wanted Gaza to be a major topic in his private talks with Trump, as widespread images of starving children shape public opinion on the war. “It’s a humanitarian crisis. It’s an absolute catastrophe,” the prime minister said before the meeting, as he and Trump stood together at Turnberry. “Nobody wants to see that. And I think people in Britain are revolted at what they’re seeing on their screens.”
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Gaza Protests: Allan is wrong it is fair to highlight Israel links
The Age | Letters (1) | 30 July 2025
In response to Premier Jacinta Allan’s statement regarding the pro-Palestinian March on Sunday that culminated at the National Gallery of Victoria, I would like to say that as a participant at that march for the first time, she is wrong (“Premier calls pro-Palestine protesters who rallied outside NGV ‘extremists’ and ‘antisemitic'”, 29/7).
The premier is wrong to label the marchers extremists because I did not see any extremists there, just normal people of all ages protesting against mass civilian deaths in Gaza being perpetrated by the Israeli government.
If the NGV, or any other organisation receives gifts from people who support the current Israeli government, then we as Australian citizens have every right to show our disapproval. There was nothing antisemitic about the protest, not the actions of the marchers nor the chanting by marchers.
The premier should think carefully about the language and labels she uses to describe normal people who are out raged by what is occurring in Gaza. It is so disappointing to have the leader of this state encouraging this level of division among the community.
Rosa Wright, Coburg
This protest uses nasty tropes
I’m a proud member of the NGV and it’s always been an environment of peace and refuge from a very challenging and traumatic period in my life. I wasn’t aware of the Gandel family’s involvement with Israel but to use their links of philanthropic gestures is hateful when many other wealthy individuals in our institutions have problematic relationships with China, Russia or other countries.
Whether or not I disagree with the Gandels’ politics, we have an ugly history of racism that includes nasty Jewish tropes of some people being controlling and wealthy, which makes me feel very uncomfortable with these protests. You win over people’s hearts and minds with smart and cr ative protests, not when the message has been lost among all this ugly noise.
Mel Smith, Brighton
Crossing the line
The pro-Palestine demonstration outside the NGV on Sunday (“Vilifying art-lovers at the NGV is a step too far”, 29/7) made it abundantly clear that many of the demonstrators, like too many supporters of the Israeli cause as well, have crossed a line where they are conflating issues. In the case of the demonstrators, their actions are not only expressing their disagreement with the Israeli government, which is a legitimate position, but have well and truly crossed the line. So it is time for the state government to act and no longer allow them to demonstrate.
Jim Payton, Keilor East
How should speech be restricted?
Steve Vizard was quoted as saying of the protesters at the NGV, “The government could stop this growing culture of lawlessness in a heartbeat if they wanted … they appear to choose not to.” My question is exactly what actions does he want the government to take?
Robert Dean, Hawthorn East
Which target comes next?
From what I’ve gleaned, these protesters were at the NGV as they were against the recognition by the NGV of Jewish benefactors because of their perceived support of Zionism, of Israel as a nation. What are the next targets of the protesters? Hospitals? Universities? Research institutions? Any institution that has received philanthropy from Jewish sources? Perhaps, have the statue of General Sir John Monash re moved and erase his name from places that honour him, as, after all, he was Jewish and a sup porter of Zionism. These are not peaceful pro testers but people bent on causing disruption, fear and chaos.
Harry Kowalski, Ivanhoe
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Gaza Protests: Allan is wrong it is fair to highlight Israel links
The Age | Letters (2) | 30 July 2025
Starvation claims
I never thought I’d quote Donald Trump in support of a position; but here goes. According to Deputy Israeli Ambassador Amir Meron, there is no starvation in Gaza and it’s a “false campaign that is being [led] by Hamas”. Trump noted: “That’s real starvation; I can see it and you can’t fake that.”
Apparently, according to the Israeli government, Hamas has managed to pull the wool of over Trump’s eyes – not necessarily a difficult task, to be sure- but also over the eyes of the United Nations, the World Health Organisation, more than 100 international aid organisations (who recently signed a joint statement about the starvation) as well as two respected Israeli aid organisations, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights (whose members presumably know how to recognise genuine starvation). Who’s really faking it?
Dennis Dodd, Shepparton
Shared humanity
Experienced Israeli soldiers with proven loyalties are looking beyond the frontlines of Gaza’s war (“Israeli soldiers and generals turning their backs on Netanyahu over Gaza”, 29/7). They see a reality in which Palestinian civilian families are mere collateral for an Israeli government resorting to violence to shroud political ambitions. (Yes, Hamas fighters also trashed Israeli civilian families).
We should encourage Israel’s uniformed dissidents; your correspondents’ acknowledge they express a growing sentiment in Israel, against war. Yet being against war will not be enough to build a new peace.
Israel needs peace as much as Palestinians do. But can Israel even start down that path while its occupation, laws, regulations and budgets ensure Palestinians remain subjects or second-class citizens? The Jewish state’s reputation will fully recover, along with its security, when its people ac knowledge the full humanity of others.
Ken Blackman, Inverloch
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MPs slam Minns over march fight
Sydney Morning Herald | Michael McGowan, Alexandra Smith & Jessica McSweeney | 30 July 2025
Members of Chris Minns’s government have accused the premier of overstepping his authority in declaring he would oppose a planned march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday. Labor MPs have criticised the premier for tainting proper process and being “more concerned about traffic flow than the plight of starving children”.
Despite repeatedly criticising pro-Palestine demonstrators, Minns sought to strike a conciliatory tone yesterday, even as he reiterated that a planned march across the Harbour Bridge could not go ahead. “Many people are worried about aid and humanitarian care getting into Gaza, and I want the killing to stop as well,” he said.
But Minns’s insistence, during a radio interview with the ABC, that the planned march should not go ahead in “any circumstances” drew an angry re buke from some Labor MPs who say his ongoing opposition to pro-Palestinian demonstrators has created a “hostile” atmosphere which could lead to violence.
Stephen Lawrence, an upper house Labor MP and barrister, said the “detailed statutory regime” governing rules for protests gave “no substantive role” to the premier in deciding whether police can refuse to give immunity to demonstrators from offences such as blocking roads.
But, he said, he was “extremely concerned” by the premier’s comments, which he said could “taint” due process, and potentially lead to violent confrontations between police and demonstrators because of anger over the decision to block it.
“I find it troubling that the premier’s statement does not reference any apparent sound basis to prevent the protest nor the legal mechanism in NSW through which authorisation is considered,” he said. “I am concerned … this will taint proper consideration of the matter by police, and that violence may ensue as a consequence.”
Anthony D’Adam, a Labor MP who has repeatedly criticised the premier over his stance on the Gaza conflict, and who was sacked by Minns as a junior minister after he labelled Police Commissioner Karen Webb a “liar” over the behaviour of officers at pro-Palestinian protests, said the premier’s “default position” was to oppose the march.
“The premier is more co cerned about traffic flow than the plight of starving children in Gaza,” D’Adam said. “The Harbour Bridge has been used on other occasions, and police should work with the Palestine Action Group to find a suitable time for the march to occur on the bridge.”
Police yesterday denied Minns’s comments were a factor as he confirmed police would oppose attempts to march across the bridge. Acting Deputy Commissioner Peter McKenna said while police were “sympathetic” to the protesters’ cause, the decision was “first and foremost about public and police safety”.
“The premier has come out and stated he didn’t support it. We looked at the public safety, and it turns out we’re in complete agreement,” he said. Minns said closing down the bridge “even on a short-term basis” would have too big an impact on the city.
While protest organisers have pointed to other reasons for the bridge closing – including the Sydney marathon, filming for a Ryan Gosling movie, and a march during the 2023 World Pride event, Minns said those events had been “months and months and months in preparation”. Asked whether the march could go ahead if more notice were given, Minns said: “I wouldn’t do it for any circumstances.”
Lawrence, who has repeatedly defended NSW Police over the October 2023 protests, which created ugly scenes at the NSW Opera House when officers allowed a march from Town Hall in a bid to avoid conflict, said police should be allowed to determine how to manage a protest.
“The safety of police officers themselves could be endangered when political statements impinge on the making of operational policing decisions in respect of protests,” he said.
After meeting with police on Tuesday, Josh Lees, one of the organisers, said Minns’ comments would lead more people to attend. “When the police or the premier try to ban our protest, they multiply in size by about 10 be cause people are outraged not only that there’s a genocide going on but that our government would try to stop us,” he said.
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‘Justice warrior’ has raised the ire of Premier
Sydney Morning Herald | Jordan Baker | 30 July 2025
Chris Minns doesn’t seem to like Josh Lees. While the showdown over whether Sunday’s proposed march across the Harbour Bridge goes ahead is ostensibly between activists and authorities, it’s clear that the premier has little time for the socialist activist who has been a driving force behind the pro-Palestine protests that Minns has pushed hard to curtail.
As his frustration mounted last year, Minns dismissed Lees as a professional protester (the descriptor was put to him, and he agreed), whose weekly protest applications had cost taxpayers $5 million in resources. Broadcaster Bed Fordham went further, questioning what Lees did for a living and saying he could write on his resume that he was a “full-time pain in the arse”.
It’s true the list of causes for which 43-year-old Lees has taken to the streets is long and diverse; it reaches back 20-odd years to the Iraq War and John Howard’s refugee policies, and stretches through the Occupy Sydney movement, protesting corporate greed, inequality and capitalism, to Black Lives Matter and COVID-19.
But Lees’ supporters say the suggestion he’ll jump behind a megaphone for the facile thrill of annoying the establishment is unfair. They say he has come a long way in the 20-odd years since he made breathless headlines in the Green Left Weekly as a university tutor charged with resisting arrest over a voluntary student unionism protests, when “scores of police” with dogs and on horseback were sent to deal with a clash between his supporters and a group of young Liberals chanting “cops are tops” outside the courtroom.
With the help of sympathetic lawyers and two decades of activist experience, he is now among the leaders of the Palestine Action Group negotiating with law enforcement to stage weekly protests, and attempting to curtail pro Palestine protests in court.
Recently, he launched a constitutional challenge to laws introduced by the Minns government restricting protests near places of worship. Greens MP Sue Higginson is a fan. She describes him as a justice warrior. “Josh is somebody who is deeply respectful of the people he works with, and he’s deeply respectful of our democracy,” she said. “I mean that in the sense of our legal process, including the way our laws are made and the way the courts uphold them.”
Little is known about Lees’ personal background. He holds a degree in political economy from the University of Sydney, a course that has long attracted politically motivated students because it’s based on the premise that economies aren’t just mathematical systems, but influenced by power and social forces (Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is a more famous graduate).
He grew up in a pro-trade union household, but his shift to the far left of politics happened towards the end of his time at university. He writes for Red Flag, a newspaper published by Socialist Alternative, socialists who are also known as Trotskyists (and who are loathed by Minns’ faction, the Labor right).
He has a day job, but has never given any hints about what that might be. He lives in the Inner West and grew up in Sydney’s north-west. Much has been made of his strawberry blond man bun. He has faced a few minor charges relating to protest activity, many of which have been dismissed. He re fused to be interviewed or photographed for this piece.
Minns, who has previously flagged the possibility of making it harder for Palestinian protesters to obtain a permit, has said a march across the bridge would throw the city into chaos and would not be allowed under any circumstances, even if more notice had been given.
A march is supported by the Greens, but opposed by the Jewish community and the NSW opposition. “I vehemently support the right of free protest, but like all rights, it’s not unlimited,” said Alex Ryvchin from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, who argues the weekly pro-Palestine protests have empowered others to persecute Jewish Australians.
Lees is not alone in his concern about the government’s at tempts to curtail protests in NSW, a debate that has been reignited by Minns’ opposition to the bridge march. There are concerns from human rights groups, the legal fraternity and from within Labor.
The most recent Labor critic is upper house MP and barrister Stephen Lawrence, who said community concern about the situation in Gaza was increasing, and senior political leaders across both major parties had created an environment that was “hostile to protests concerned with the rights of Palestinian people”.
Regardless of whether the march across the bridge goes ahead, Chris Minns has not seen the last of Josh Lees. “The best way to fight for the right to protest,” Lees has written in Red Flag, “is to protest, in bigger numbers than ever.
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Israel’s denials don’t change the fact people are starving
Sydney Morning Herald | Letters | 30 July 2025
The Israeli embassy says there’s no starvation in Gaza. That the images are fake. That the dying children aren’t real (“Israel’s denial of starvation reports in Gaza ‘beyond comprehension’,” July 29). But they are real. And we know it. Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, calls this a policy of starvation. It has documented the blockade of aid, the bombing of bakeries, the shootings at food queues. Wasted bodies. Children dying slow, preventable deaths. Journalist Gideon Levy goes further – he calls this denial “no less vile than Holocaust denial”. Because it erases the victims. Because it adds insult to the unimaginable cruelty. So how many more must die before Australia acts? Before we impose sanctions? Cut military ties? Recognise Palestine? How many photos of starving children do we need before Anthony Albanese does more than speak? Words don’t fill empty stomachs.
Lila Malagi, Flinders (Vic)
Israel’s deputy ambassador should read the two reports released on Monday by two Israeli human rights groups, the Israeli-Palestinian human rights group B’Tselem, and the dependently? Physicians for Human Rights Israel, which have concluded that Israel’s conduct in Gaza constitutes genocide against the Palestinian population. Or is this just another case of fake news?
Joe Collins, Mosman
Israel’s denial of starvation in Gaza is to be warmly welcomed. It is such a blatant untruth that it reinforces our scepticism about all of Israel’s assertions. A government that is prepared to brazenly contradict plain and heartbreaking evidence clearly cannot be trusted. Claims that the devastation of Gaza and the slaughter of its people are in self-defence, that civilians are never targeted, only Hamas terrorists, that Israel’s army is the most moral in the world, that Hamas is solely responsible for the failure of ceasefire negotiations, and so many more, all without evidence, cannot be taken seriously. We should be grateful that Israel’s relentless public relations campaign has been so nakedly exposed.
Tom Knowles, Parkville (Vic)
If the Israeli government in sists that the starvation inside Gaza is Hamas propaganda, then why not let the international press in to report in Wayne Fitness, Rankin Park Israeli Deputy Ambassador to Australia Amir Meron should be informed that the international media is poised to descend on Gaza and reveal the starvation hoax. It’s ready when you are, Amir.
Garry Feeney, Kingsgrove
In all the talk on Israel and Hamas and Palestine, there has been little mention of the horrors of October 7, 2023, when more than 1200 men, women and children, including citizens from 30 countries were slaughtered by Hamas. Girls and women were sexually assaulted, and physically and mentally damaged. And there are still hostages being held by Hamas.
Selwyn Suchet, St Ives Chase
No, Alex Nikulin (Letters, July 28), my point is not that “the picture of the starving child is fake news”, but that media outlets have a duty and responsibility to uphold factual integrity. Printing context-lacking photos risks legitimising anti-Jewish hatred under the guise of political criticism. In the case of Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, his mother is reported to have told the media that her son suffers from a muscular disorder that results in wasting. In other words, Muhammad’s condition is due to a medical disorder, rather than an embargo by Israel on food distribution.
George Fishman, Vaucluse
Building bridges
Presumably the NSW government profited from the closure of the Sydney Harbour Bridge when Hollywood and the Formula 1 organisers came to town (“Pro-Palestine activists vow court action over march on Harbour Bridge”, July 29). Rather than Sydney “descending into chaos”, the record shows we revelled in the excitement of those particular Sunday mornings in 2005, on one occasion seeing Mark Webber zoom across the bridge a dozen times. Notice periods aside – since the premier could counter-offer a future date for a protest march does our desire for entertainment and profit trump the human and compassionate urge to peacefully protest over a human catastrophe which we cannot unsee: the preventable starvation and killing of thousands of innocent children and adults? C’mon, Premier Minns.
Jane Woolford, Marrickville
Mr Minns, surely you see that a couple of hours of disruption for Syndey-siders is meaningless against the suffering of the people of Gaza. As governments worldwide stand by, bound up by their fear of antisemitic accusations, seemingly powerless to act, everyday people are feeling anguish and outrage, in need of a collective voice and sense of action. Why wouldn’t our most well-known landmark be the right location to show that Australians are not blind or numb to this atrocity?
Kathryn Bates, Ashfield
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Albanese rejects Israeli claims over ‘false’ images
The Australian | Richard Ferguson & Ben Packham | 30 July 2025
Labor Friends of Israel co-convener and former minister Mike Kelly has slammed Education Minister Jason Clare for claiming there was mass starvation in Gaza, saying there was no proof and Australian forces in Iraq had conducted very similar exercises to Israeli forces.
Anthony Albanese on Tuesday, however, blasted Israeli claims that there was no starvation in Gaza as “beyond comprehension”, as he invoked Nelson Mandela to reassure Labor MPs Palestine would one day be independent and free of Hamas control.
The Prime Minister used a caucus meeting in the second week of the post-election parliament to dismiss allegations by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s embassy in Canberra that images of starving children in Gaza were Hamas propaganda.
“While there is a caveat on any information provided by Hamas, it is Israel that has prevented any journalists getting in,” Mr Albanese said. “Those claims that there is no starvation are beyond comprehension.”
Mr Clare went further later on Tuesday, and told Sky News that Israel must answer for images of emaciated children that he compared to the 1980s pictures of people starving in Ethiopia.
Mr Kelly on Sky News on Tuesday night said Mr Clare’s declaration was “ridiculous” and the world standard body for declaring famines had not done so in the Hamas-controlled territory.
The former defence material minister said the Australian Defence Force had also had to fight enemies similar to Hamas in Iraq, and the reality of warfare had to be understood by Labor ministers.
“It’s the most ridiculous statement I have ever seen … this is what warfare looks like, it’s horrifying and we should be distressed by it, and this is why you don’t start them in the first place,” Mr Kelly told Sky News. “(Hamas and Iran) are guilty of starting a war of aggression. (The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) have not declared this a famine.”
While the IPC has not declared a famine, it has said 47,000 people in Gaza are at risk of famine.
Mr Kelly also condemned former foreign minister Bob Carr’s claims that Israel was breaking international law. “He’s not an investigator, he’s not on the ground … nobody who’s not on the ground will be able to make judgment about this,” he said.
“The Israeli system is incredibly robust to investigate claims and allegations. Israel’s fighting a war (against) a terrorist organisation that respects none of that and is using the civilian population as a weapon.
“(Hamas) have been the ones shooting their own people, stripping their food.”
Mr Albanese also addressed concerns among his MPs, articulated in a question from former cabinet minister Ed Husic, that the government would stop short of recognising a Palestinian state because of the difficulty of ridding the territory of Hamas.
“Things seem impossible until they happen,” he said, referring to a quote attributed to Mandela on the importance of perseverance to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
Reports on starving children in Gaza in recent days have focused on shocking images of an emaciated 18-month-old boy, Mohammed al-Mutawaq, but it’s unclear how representative the image is, with CNN reporting the boy’s mother said he had a pre-existing muscular disorder, while pro-Israeli journalist David Collier said he had cerebral palsy.
Mr Netanyahu insisted on Monday there was “no starvation in Gaza, no policy of starvation in Gaza”.
Donald Trump rubbished the claim, saying he was convinced by the images coming out of the Palestinian enclave. “That’s real starvation stuff,” the US President said. “I see it, and you can’t fake that. So we’re going to be even more involved.” He said Israel had “a lot of responsibility” for limiting aid in the territory, but again called for Hamas to release the hostages still held in Gaza to ease negotiations.
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Court row looms over bridge march
The Australian | James Dowling | 30 July 2025
NSW police have rejected an application by the Palestine Action Group to march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge this weekend, paving the way for a battle in the Supreme Court.
“After careful deliberations, we’ve made a decision … that we cannot facilitate that protest, that public assembly this Sunday. The main rationale behind that is quite clearly public safety,” acting deputy police commissioner Peter McKenna said.
“If it’s … the case that the applicant (PAG) says they want to go ahead with that public assembly on the Harbour Bridge, we will be going to the Supreme Court and lodging an application to have that matter heard and have the protest deemed unauthorised.”
The “March for Humanity” was set to cross the Harbour Bridge on Sunday, August 3.
“We will speak further with the applicant and see if we can negotiate,” Mr McKenna said. “We don’t want conflict. We don’t want an issue there, but if it’s the case that … we can’t achieve public safety then we will do what we have to do to ensure that people are kept safe.
“We just want these people to have a think about it, (and) see what they can do that is achievable for everyone.
“If people do attend on Sunday, they do not have the protections they would normally have on public assemblies … and they may (find) themselves caught up in a situation where they are lawfully moved on.
“The PAG made clear they would challenge the decision and would not accept an alternative location for the protest.
The PAG has said it will fight the decision in the courts. “If the NSW police are determined to act as Chris Minns’ pawns and oppose our march in the courts, then we will see them in court,” a PAG spokesperson said.
“The March for Humanity to save Gaza, marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge this Sunday, must go ahead.
“Chris Minns has made his views clear that he will never ‘under any circumstances’ or with any amount of warning support this march of Sydneysiders against genocide. Thankfully, it’s not up to him.”
It came after Mr Minns said he would block and divert the protest no matter when it was set for.
“I’m not questioning the motives of many of the protesters. I accept this is a protest that many people want to have. My argument here is I can’t close down the central artery for a city as big as Sydney,” Mr Minns told ABC Sydney on Tuesday.
“I think common sense has to play a role here, when it’s been closed in the past – and you can count on one hand over the last decade when it’s happened – it’s been months and months and months in the preparation, including enormous amounts of community communication so that the public understands that the central artery to get from north to south Sydney has been and will be blocked.”
The Police Association of NSW on Tuesday lent their support to Mr Minns, saying police safety had to be placed at the fore of any potential demonstration.
“The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a major arterial road where vehicles travel at 70km/h. The combination of protesters and vehicles travelling at those speeds is a recipe for disaster and a risk this organisation cannot expose our members to,” PANSW president Kevin Morton said.
“Make no mistake, based on risk, the entire Bridge would need to be closed, similar to the 75th Anniversary celebrations in 2007, which required an enormous policing response and months of planning. The safety of the community is paramount.”
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Kostakidis challenges alleged anti-semitism
The Australian | James Dowling | 30 July 2025
The racial discrimination case of Mary Kostakidis is a battle between “free speech” and “hate speech”, according to its litigants, with the former SBS newsreader arguing for allegations against her to be scrubbed away.
At a hearing on Tuesday, judge Stephen McDonald said political criticism of Israel could veer into overt anti-Semitism and had “an obvious potential for correlation”.
It came as Kostakidis pushed for a strikeout application that would cripple the claim brought by the Zionist Federation of Australia, potentially scuppering the case entirely.
Kostakidis’s defence was emboldened by the recent judgment of judge Angus Stewart in the racial discrimination case of jihadi preacher Wissam Haddad, which found anti-Zionism was not inherently anti-Semitic.
However, Justice McDonald told Kostakidis’s barrister, Stephen Keim, on Tuesday that he was attuned to the unique perils that face Jewish Australians confronting criticism of Israel.
“The overarching difficulty that arises in this case – and to some extent, the issue that was dealt with by Justice Stewart – is that there’s an obvious potential for correlation between views about Jewish people and views about Israel because the relationship between Jews and Israel (is) different from the relationship between many other states and ethnicities,” he said.
“There seems to be an issue here that people who are anti-Semitic tend to conflate these things, and people who are on the other side and trying to accuse someone of being anti-Semitic tend to conflate these things in a different way.
“That seems to make it difficult to separate out something that is clearly about Israel versus something that’s clearly about Jewish people.”
ZFA barrister Michael Borsky, representing its chief executive, Alon Cassuto, said his client intended to challenge Justice Stewart’s findings on the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.
“Mr Cassuto … if it became relevant … would challenge the proposition. It is, at its most in this proceeding, an issue for trial, not a basis for striking out,” Mr Borsky said. “In Mr Cassuto’s claim … it is people of Israeli national origin in Australia (being threatened), and we submit it’s … at least arguable that group is capable of being offended or insulted in the relevant statutory sense.
Speaking before the hearing, Kostakidis said the ZFA was impinging on the public’s civil liberties.
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US, Europe defy Netanyahu with aid for Gaza
The Australian / WSJ, The Times | Shayndi Raice | 30 July 2025
The US and Europe will launch a program to deliver food directly to Palestinians in Gaza as a hunger crisis grips the territory, Donald Trump says, in a direct challenge to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assessment of the humanitarian situation.
Speaking in Scotland with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Mr Trump described the food crisis in Gaza as a “terrible situation”.
He said the US would set up food centres “in conjunction with some very good people”, and fund the effort along with European nations.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether he was referring to a new American effort to get food into Gaza or an expansion of an existing Israeli-backed program called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which uses an American contractor to distribute aid.
GHF, which began distributing aid in May, has struggled to deliver sufficient aid to Gazans and has been beset by violence near some of its food distribution sites. Local health authorities say hundreds have been killed near the sites. Israel’s military acknowledges shooting at crowds but says the number of deaths is inflated.
Asked how new food-distribution sites could work, Mr Trump said there would be no physical barriers to people accessing the food. “The people are screaming for the food and they are 35-40 yards away,” Mr Trump said, adding that “very strict lines” at current food distribution sites meant people couldn’t access the aid. “So we have to get rid of those lines.”
A White House spokeswoman said further details of the plan would be issued soon. An official for the Israeli military branch that co-ordinates aid said it wasn’t aware of any new American or European program.
On Monday, Mr Netanyahu said there “is no starvation in Gaza, no policy of starvation in Gaza and I assure you that we have a commitment to achieve our war goals”.
In response to a question about whether he believed Israeli claims that there is no starvation in Gaza, Mr Trump said: “I don’t know, I mean based on television … those children look very hungry.”
Israel has in recent days increased efforts to get more food into Gaza. On Sunday, it announced a tactical pause in military activity for 10 hours every day in parts of the Strip to help ensure safe routes for aid.
The announcement follows growing pressure from Arab and Western officials over what residents and humanitarian workers say is the worst hunger crisis to grip the enclave since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 sparked the war in Gaza.
Sir Keir will this week set out a Middle East peace plan that will put Britain on the path to recognising a Palestinian state amid mounting cabinet pressure.
The Prime Minister will hold an emergency cabinet meeting on Gaza this week to approve his plan after his talks with Mr Trump.
Downing Street said Sir Keir and Mr Trump discussed plans being drawn up with France and Germany to bring about a “lasting peace”. Government sources did not rule out joining France in recognising a Palestinian state at the UN general assembly in September if a ceasefire is secured.
Seven members of the British cabinet are pushing Sir Keir to formally recognise Palestine, along with 130 Labour MPs, a third of its backbenchers.
Downing Street confirmed the goal was to recognise a state in this parliament, calling it a matter of “when, not if”. Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, and Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, are understood to be among those backing early recognition of Palestine. It emerged last week that Angela Rayner, Sir Keir’s deputy, and Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, had argued for urgent action.
Ministers acknowledged the US was in a “different position” on Palestinian statehood and was unlikely to join European countries and Canada in recognising one. However, Mr Trump said before his talks with Sir Keir in Scotland that the issue should not come between them.
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Arab peacekeeping force key to future of two-state solution
The Australian | Letters | 30 July 2025
Greg Sheridan is correct in observing that a two-state solution will be very difficult to implement as a response to the current loss of life in Gaza and Israel (“Recognising Palestine state would be a mistake”, 29/7).
While a possible enforcement of border security between two such states by UN forces has been proposed, the failure of the United Nations to enforce the “blue line” (UN Resolution 1701) separating Lebanon and Israel suggests otherwise. Indeed, Israel may understandably question the neutrality, as well as the practicality, of such a solution.
On the other hand, the feasibility of an Arab peacekeeping force should be pursued. Such a force, drawn from Saudi, Emirati, and other Middle Eastern states familiar with Palestinian politics, would be more likely to constrain the militancy of Hamas operatives.
Such nations are increasingly keen to restore peace and trade to the Middle East.
Vicki Sanderson, Cremorne, NSW
Severely emaciated children can be found around the world, even in Australia. The selective release of images by Hamas of such children, presumably in Gaza (“Images of starving children ‘false’”, 29/7), is clearly proving to be a highly effective propaganda weapon.
Paul Prociv, Mount Mellum, Qld
It doesn’t fit their current victimhood narrative but the pro-Palestinian mob need to be reminded that their political forebears rejected a two-state solution offered by the UN in 1948, and in 2000 a very generous offer by Israel at a Camp David summit hosted by Bill Clinton.
And why did they reject these offers? Because they want nothing less than a Palestine state “from the river to the sea”.
George Fishman, Vaucluse NSW
The awful situation In Gaza Is one that I feel has been largely determined by Hamas.
Originally it set out to attack Israel, but that was largely a sham and was dominated by the terrible massacre of October 7, 2023.
Hamas was not equipped for any full-scale attack and I suspect that its initial move was designed to entice other Arabic nations into the fray.
That didn’t work very well, and Iran was the only serious power to mount an attack. So now we have Hamas in need of a surrender, and I believe the situation of women and children in Gaza (who would likely have had no say in the initial support offered to Hamas) suits its agenda very well in that it puts Hamas in a position to dictate the terms of surrender. And world opinion seems to be effectively on Hamas’s side.
Ian Napier, St Peters, SA
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Police vow to block harbour bridge protest
Daily Telegraph | Nathan Schmidt | 30 July 2025
Police will seek to block a planned pro-Palestine march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, setting the stage for a Supreme Court challenge with organisers.
The Palestine Action Group Sydney informed NSW Police of plans for a march across the Bridge on Sunday in protest as what they claim is mass starvation in Gaza.
Plans for the march have been condemned by Premier Chris Minns who said Sydney could “descend into chaos” if the protest went ahead.
Addressing the march on Tuesday afternoon, NSW Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Peter McKenna said the decision to block the march was made by police, independently of the Premier.
“After careful deliberations we’ve made the decision … that we cannot facilitate that protest, that public assembly this Sunday,” he said.
“We understand there is some angst at the moment about what’s happening overseas. We understand and are sympathetic to that, but the NSW Police decision around this has to be first and foremost about public and police safety.”
Dep Comm McKenna said the protest would block emergency services from attending emergencies and would put lives at risk.
He warned protesters if they attended on Sunday they would “not have the protections they would normally have at public assemblies”.
“They may face themselves being caught up in a situation where they are lawfully moved on and if offences are committed, (they will be) arrested and charged.’’
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March of madness planned for Sydney
Daily Telegraph | Editorial | 30 July 2025
The very first protest in Sydney following the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas was not in fact against Hamas.
Rather, it was against Israel, whose citizens were raped, slaughtered, kidnapped and tortured by Hamas maniacs. And now another protest is planned for Sydney, again backing the Palestinian recognition movement. This is obscene.
Protesters should be demanding the release of hostages. Instead, they’re cheering for their captors.
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Carr goes off track
Daily Telegraph | Letters | 30 July 2025
Thank God Bob Carr is in an advanced state of irrelevance (“Bob’s Gaza Carr crash”, DT, 29/7).
Not that I can recall anything of great significance that he ever had to adjudicate as foreign minister but it looks likely that he would be able to create an even bigger mess of the government’s attitude on Gaza than we are presently set on.
In order to have a two-state solution, there needs to be two states. Who in their right mind would offer state control over the Palestinians to a group with a track record like Hamas?
The removal of Hamas could establish an opportunity to begin the process of statehood for the Palestinian people.
Gary Bryant, Gladesville
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Pollies at odds over Gaza ‘starvation’
Herald-Sun (Courier-Mail) | Clare Armstrong | 30 July 2025
Anthony Albanese has told his Labor colleagues claims by Israel’s leadership there is no starvation in Gaza are “beyond comprehension”.
The PM contradicted Israel’s deputy chief of mission in Australia, Amir Meron, who had echoed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s suggestion there was “no starvation in Gaza” when asked about the conditions for Australia supporting Palestinian statehood during a caucus meeting of Labor MPs in Canberra on Tuesday.
Mr Albanese admitted, however, that there was a “caveat” on any war information flowing from terror group Hamas.
Opposition leader Sussan Ley said the photos out of Gaza were “incredibly distressing”, but she would not say there was mass starvation, describing it as “complex situation”.
“There are reports of Hamas interrupting the flow of aid. Now, if we want the war to end, and we all do, we know the simplest, quickest way is for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages,” she said.
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Er, Ingrid, this is ‘shameful’
Herald-Sun | Carly Douglas | 30 July 2025
Premier Jacinta Allan has been forced to clean up her multicultural minister’s mess after she refused to condemn anti-Israel extremists who sent the National Gallery of Victoria into lockdown.
On Monday, Minister Ingrid Stitt defended a crowd who blocked the entrance of the storied Melbourne arts institution in protest against Jewish philanthropists, John and Pauline Gandel, who are major donors of the gallery and various Zionist groups.
“In Victoria, people do have the right to protest peacefully and the vast majority … do protest peacefully,” she said.
Following fierce backlash, Ms Allan came out swinging at parliament on Tuesday, condemning the “extremists” over the “shameful” and “anti-Semitic” protest.
“We are known as the creative and cultural capital of the nation,” she said.
“A big part of that reputation has been due to the generosity of families like the Gandels.”
She said the targeting of the Jewish couple and the NGV had “frankly very little to do with the conflict in the Middle East” and was more about “driving division” on the streets of Melbourne.
“It is a small number of extremists and Victorians condemn their behaviour – I condemn it,” she said.
Pressed over whether the police should have moved on extremists causing havoc, Ms Allan said they had the powers to do so. “Police have the powers to move people on if they are posing a risk to the community,” she said.
It came after former NGV head Steve Vizard urged the Allan government to crack down on a “growing culture of lawlessness”.
“That a handful of protesters are permitted to shut down a major public gallery and slander some of Melbourne’s most esteemed families – families who have contributed to the cultural life of this city and nation for generations – by engaging in rampant racism, anti-Semitism, is outrageous,” he said.
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No peace in these protests
Herald-Sun | Editorial | 32 July 2025
The rejection by the Allan government and our new police chief of any need for protest permits will be tested this and over coming weekends.
That test could likely turn out to be in the comparative outcomes experienced in NSW, where a tougher approach from the Minns Labor government has refused to bow to protesters to issue a permit to allow the Sydney Harbour Bridge to be shut down by pro- Palestine demonstrations.
While criticisms continue to mount in Victoria about the Allan government’s approach to a demonstration that shut down access to one of our state’s icons, the National Gallery of Victoria, the lack of a protest permit system here curtails police powers to move unruly protesters on.
As shown last weekend, even though lawful access to the NGV was disrupted, protest incursions into public spaces and blockading thoroughfares is, apparently, fair game in the nation’s protest capital. And the fact an extremist element of the protests again touted their vile anti-Semitism, this time targeting well-known Jewish philanthropists and NGV benefactors John and Pauline Gandel, labelled by some of these rally morons as “genocidal Zionists,” illustrates the clear distinction between lawful protest and hate-fuelled mob.
On Sunday, about 1000 protesters, some chanting “Death to the IDF” and “socialism now”, rallied outside the NGV, blocking access for families and children.
Activists targeted the NGV following a gala dinner at which a hall was renamed in honour the Gandels, a family who have contributed enormously to the state.
Former NGV president Steve Vizard called on the Allan government to finally act to end the “culture of lawlessness” that had infected demonstrations with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hate.
“That a handful of protesters are permitted to shut down a major public gallery and slander some of Melbourne’s most esteemed families – families who have contributed to the cultural life of this city and nation for generations – by engaging in rampant racism, anti-Semitism, is outrageous and increasingly dangerous,” Mr Vizard said.
NSW has adopted a protest permit system, requiring protest organisers to prearrange demonstrations with police to ensure traffic and commercial disruption can be somewhat managed.
The Palestine Action Group had soug”t to’lead a mass walk across the Harbour Bridge this weekend to demonstrate against the horrors being seen in Gaza. Protest supporters argue the bridge revioussly been closed for the 2023 World Pride and 2000 reconciliation marches, as well as sections shut for film shoots.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said “we cannot allow Sydney to descend into chaos” and argued “the NSW government cannot support a protest of this scale and nature taking place on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, especially with one week’s notice.”
While demonstrators have since proposed another date to give more notice, the utility of the permit system has already been illustrated by the police-protester talks about where, when and if mass commuter disruption can take place. No such mandated process exists in Victoria – here it is largely a practice of letting local council know a demonstration is going ahead and then letting the havoc play out.
Former police chief Shane Patton last year formally requested the Allan government introduce a NSW-style protest permit system.
Now, new chief Mike Bush has already declared he doesn’t see the need for protest permits.
The right to protest – peacefully – is a democratic cornerstone.
But what happened at the NGV; the separate spate of anti-Semitic arsons and attacks, together with the weekly chants of hatred needs to be met with the arrest and prosecution of those who are clearly intent to vilify and incite violence.
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Rallies a blight on city
Herald-Sun | Text Talk | 30 July 2025
I am very disappointed to read that new Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush has rejected the idea of a permit system for protests, having personally watched one of these “peaceful” rallies (“Vizard rages at ‘rampant racism’”, HS, 29/7).
What is so peaceful about chanting “Free Palestine from the River to the Sea”, meaning death to Israel?
Furthermore, every protester I have asked about how they view Hamas, their response has always been as “freedom fighters”.
Anti-Semitic protests have no place in this country that has been my home for 55 years since arriving as an immigrant from Yugoslavia.
This country is the land of opportunity and with that comes responsibility and respect.
These so-called “peaceful” rallies are a blight on our city and totally disrespectful.
Steve Naumovski, Southbank
Exempt from laws
Airports, supermarkets, shops and offices prominently display signs saying to treat the staff with respect and abusive behaviour will not be tolerated.
So how is it that the pro-Palestine protesters are allowed to scream abuse in the face of the police who are there to keep the peace and protect the innocent without consequences (“Families caught in NGV lockdown”, HS 28/7)?
It appears some groups are exempt from laws that govern the hard-working majority.
Government indifference is clearly visible when it comes to providing a safe and free country for all people.
Both federal and state governments could have dealt with the abuse and the threats against the Jewish community right from the beginning.
Instead, they let it fester and now this protesting rabble are a threat and a nuisance to everyone.
Rohan De Soysa, Macleod
Labor inaction
Inaction by the Allan government continues in the face of violent anti-Jewish protests that’s becoming normalised in this state (“Vizard rages at ‘rampant racism’”, HS, 29/7).
Imagine the government’s response if similar protests were directed at Muslims, the Indigenous or the LGBTQIA+ communities.
The response would be immediate and decisive.
Hate legislation would be rushed through parliament and the plethora of our human rights organisations and the police thrown into top gear.
Some deportations might likely follow.
So why the insipid and drawn-out response by the government to anti-Semitic behaviour?
A couple of likely reasons stand out.
Firstly, there is an influential lobby in Labor.
Secondly, the government is dominated by the socialist left faction.
While these conditions prevail within Labor, curtailing anti-Semitism will be a protracted process.
Only a change in government will see the problem resolved.
Martin Newington, Aspendale
Echo of Nazi Germany
Melbourne is becoming the Germany of the late 1930s, filled with hate, fuelled by the left and anti-Semitic attacks by people like former Labor minister Bob Carr (“Carr’s ‘genocide’ barb for Israel’s action in Gaza just an attempt to ‘provoke outrage’”, HS, 29/7).
The government is incapable of stopping it.
Every day the situation gets worse and more frightening.
Why would anyone, if Jewish, want to stay in this city with such vitriol and hatred?
Imagine if this was directed at Islamic people.
It would have been denounced and stopped in a very short time.
I am embarrassed to live in Victoria.
Paul A’Bell, Leongatha
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Send in joint force
Courier-Mail | Letters | 30 July 2025
Why is no world leader from the G7 and other countries such as Australia calling for an international force, ideally under a UN endorsement, to intervene in Gaza?
Such a force, if not under UN auspices, realistically a “Coalition of the Willing”, would announce they are sending in such a force to occupy Gaza and enforce peace-keeping.
Israel would have to accept this intervention and withdraw, and Hamas would be forced to surrender and free the hostages, or be destroyed.
It is the only way to stop the war, secure humanitarian aid, and begin to rebuild Gaza.
It has been done before, eg Bosnia/Kosovo, and the first Gulf War in Kuwait and Iraq.
The current Exercise Talisman Sabre comprises some 35,000 troops from 19 countries with extensive weapons and equipment on land, at sea, and in the air, at immense cost.
So why not a real Operation Talisman Sabre, an armed intervention to bring the war in Gaza to an end, supply food and other aid supplies to 2 million Gaza civilians, and in so doing take a first step to build peace in Palestine and Israel?
Appeals for calm, restraint, de-escalation and other platitudes from the world’s politicians are meaningless.
Is there no world leader with the moral courage and conviction to propose such an intervention?
Bryn Evans, Redcliffe
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UK could recognise Palestinian state in September: PM
Canberra Times / AAP | 30 July 2025
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9028353/uk-could-recognise-palestinian-state-in-september-pm/
Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the United Kingdom is prepared to recognise a Palestinian state in September at the United Nations General Assembly unless Israel takes a number of steps to improve life for Palestinians.
Starmer said the UK would make the move unless Israel took substantive steps to allow more aid to enter the Gaza Strip, made clear there will be no annexation of the West Bank and commits to a long-term peace process that delivers a “two-state solution” – a Palestinian state co-existing in peace alongside Israel.
“The Palestinian people have endured terrible suffering,” Starmer told reporters.
“Now, in Gaza, because of a catastrophic failure of aid, we see starving babies, children too weak to stand, images that will stay with us for a lifetime. The suffering must end.”
Starmer said his government would make an assessment in September on “how far the parties have met these steps” but that no one would have a veto over the decision.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response that Starmer’s decision rewards “Hamas monstrous terrorism and punishes its victims”.
“A jihadist state on Israel’s border today will threaten Britain tomorrow,” Netanyahu added.
Starmer took the decision after recalling his cabinet during the summer holidays on Tuesday to discuss a new proposed peace plan being worked on with other European leaders and how to deliver more humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, a government statement said.
“He reiterated that there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas and that our demands on Hamas remain that they must release all the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, accept that they will play no role in the government of Gaza and disarm.”
Successive UK governments have said they will formally recognise a Palestinian state when the time is right, without ever setting a timetable or specifying the necessary conditions.
A growing numbers of MPs in Starmer’s Labour Party have asked him to recognise a Palestinian state to push Israel towards action.
Pressure to formally recognise Palestinian statehood has mounted since French President Emmanuel Macron announced that his country will recognise a Palestinian state in September.
Meanwhile, Germany sent two military transport aircraft to Jordan to assist in airdrops of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said.
Planes from Jordan and the United Arab Emirates dropped another 52 pallets of food over the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said on Tuesday.
Egyptian planes also took part in the airdrops for the first time since Sunday, when Israel began allowing increased aid into the sealed-off Palestinian territory after months of restrictions, the military said.
The Israeli military on Sunday announced it was implementing daily “humanitarian” pauses in fighting to allow for new aid to be safely distributed in the embattled strip amid increased international pressure over warners of imminent famine.
The military said Egypt, Jordan and the UAE were co-ordinating the airdrops with Israel.
Aid organisations including Doctors Without Borders have criticised the method as ineffective and expensive compared to lorry aid deliveries.
They also note the danger posed to waiting civilians by the dropping pallets, which are attached to parachutes.
Scores of Palestinians in the Gazan town of Zawaida swam into the sea to retrieve what they could from airdrops of aid on Tuesday.
Kamel Qoraan returned to shore with a soaked bag of tea powder, saying that airdropping aid is “humiliating” and calling for the opening of border crossings for trucks.
Some people seemed relieved to get anything.
One boy smiled as he clutched a small sack of flour.
One man had a can of beans.
Momen Abu Etayya said his son urged him to chase the airdrops, and dashed into the sea.
“I was only able to bring him three biscuits,” he said.
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Anthony Albanese and Sussan Ley were once on a Palestine unity ticket
A close up photo of Annabel Crabb, who has long brown hair and is wearing red spectacles, red lipstick and a blue top
ABC | Annabel Crabb | 30 July 2025
Here’s a weird state of affairs. On an issue that is swinging a wrecking ball through institutions and communities across this country and indeed the democratic world, the leaders of Australia’s two major parties are quiet co-occupants of a historic unity ticket.
Both Anthony Albanese and Sussan Ley are past convenors of the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine group, having joined it — or in Albanese’s case, actively co-founded it — when they were backbenchers, more than two decades ago.
Both have expressly supported the recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Friends across the political spectrum
Albanese created the group in 1999 with Joe Hockey, who was at the time a new Liberal MP and a junior minister in John Howard’s Coalition government.
Ley joined the Parliamentary Friends Of Palestine shortly after her election to the House of Representatives in 2001, having wrested the vast regional seat of Farrer from the National Party.
In 2003, she took on a leadership role, telling the Australian Jewish News: “For those of us who look forward to an independent Palestinian state and wish to advance the cause of viable sovereign statehood, this group gives us an opportunity to hold out the hand of friendship, understanding and trust.”
In 2011, by which time she was a shadow minister in Tony Abbott’s opposition, Ley told the parliament that she supported the Palestinian people’s bid for recognition and membership of the United Nations.
On the question of Palestine, the position of the federal Labor Party is clear. In 2021, for the first time, the party’s national conference voted not only to confirm its support for a two-state solution, but to “call on the next Labor government to recognise Palestine as a state”, in a motion authored by then shadow foreign minister Penny Wong.
That next Labor government arrived at the 2022 election. Wong is now foreign minister. And now the opposition is led by someone who also is on parliamentary record as supporting Palestinian statehood. If you were an intelligent alien freshly landed from the Planet Zorb, you could be forgiven for thinking matters should be pretty straightforward from here, yes?
No. The rules of Australian political debate about Palestine — more than 12,000km away from Canberra and approximately seven ten-thousandths of our land mass — are much, much more complicated than that.
Not so straightforward
Labor senator Fatima Payman last year found this out the hard way, when she announced her intention to vote for a Greens Senate motion to recognise Palestine, citing the Labor platform’s explicit position.
Payman is no longer a Labor senator. She is permanently estranged from her old party, an outcome that would cause our alien visitor to scratch its head, if that’s indeed how intelligent life-forms from Zorb express puzzlement.
The best demonstration of how tangled and Byzantine this matter can become is obtained by zooming back in time to the minority government of Julia Gillard, the time frame in which Ley devoted a parliamentary speech to her support for Palestinian statehood.
Albanese, by this time the leader of the House, wrangling legislation day by day for a prime minister holding power by one vote, was publicly more circumspect, for good reason.
The status of a Palestinian state was by this time the nexus of a significant proxy war within Labor.
And a complex, multi-layered war it was, fought mostly below the public water line, but much muddied by related disputes, some of them ancient: factional divides between left and right, or within the right between NSW and Victoria. The ongoing bad blood between Gillard and the leader she deposed, Kevin Rudd, was an additional underwater hazard. By that time, Rudd was foreign minister, running a campaign for Australia to win a seat on the UN Security Council and pressing Gillard to distance the government from Israel.
Gillard was a supporter of Australia’s alliance with Israel and despite nominally belonging to Labor’s left faction, she was much more closely associated with elements of the right (Keep up, little alien. Don’t lose focus!).
As Australian Union of Students leader in the early 1980s, Gillard was instrumental in quashing that organisation’s activism for Palestine in the early 1980s, arguing that it “alienated the vast mass of students”.
Bob Carr tries to persuade Julia Gillard
Australia won its bid for a seat at the Security Council in late 2012, by which time Rudd had quit as foreign minister and his replacement, former NSW premier Bob Carr, had taken over trying to talk Gillard out of voting against Palestine being given observer status at the UN.
“To feed my gloomy irritation I sustain another defeat at the hands of the Likudniks,” reports Carr in a diary entry on November 12, 2012, using one of his terms for pro-Israel Labor colleagues (another is “felafel faction”). In the same entry, Carr moodily records that an attempt to “escape episodes of atrial fibrillation” by eliminating coffee from his diet had also failed, producing only lethargy and headaches. “To live is to lose ground.”
But in a cabinet meeting on November 27 of that year, Carr and the majority of his cabinet colleagues erupted in rebellion against their prime minister.
Some were motivated by principle. Some by factional allegiance. Some by the demographics of their electorates. Some by their loyalty to Rudd. Either way, Gillard had only two cabinet voices defending her that day: Victorian right-wingers Stephen Conroy and Bill Shorten.
The upshot was that Gillard was forced to retreat from her position. Australia did not — as she’d earlier directed — vote against the motion affording Palestine observer status at the UN. Instead, we abstained.
The motion passed easily, with only a handful of nations opposed.
Australia’s stance made no difference to the final result, but it nearly tipped Gillard out of the leadership. As it was, she lasted just another six months.
Incidentally, Carr — who remains Labor’s most trenchant critic of Israel, and on Monday called on the government to recognise Palestinian statehood as soon as possible — way back in 1977 co-founded, along with Bob Hawke, the group Labor Friends of Israel.
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The long and dangerous journey into Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid sites
ABC | Eric Tlozek & Toby Mann | 30 July 2025
- Palestinians in Gaza say they feel torn between risking their lives at aid sites or starving.
- Health authorities in Gaza said more than 1,000 people had been killed while trying to secure food at sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
- The ABC has talked to multiple sources in Gaza who have used the aid system, many of whom say they witnessed soldiers shooting directly at civilians.
Gaza has been cut off from steady food supplies for months, and since aid deliveries have resumed, more than 1,000 desperate people have been killed while trying to access essentials.
Many of the killings have happened around sites recently set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US- and Israeli-backed private operation that has taken over distribution of critical supplies from traditional aid agencies.
Palestinians in Gaza have told the ABC they feel they have to risk their lives in the hope of collecting food at one of the aid sites.
Multiple witnesses told the ABC they have seen soldiers fire directly at Palestinians.
People in Gaza are starving, and as the UN points out, they face an “unacceptable” choice over risking death to get food.
“The hunger crisis in Gaza has reached new and astonishing levels of desperation,” the UN said.
After mounting international pressure, Israel has announced “tactical pauses” of its bombardment of Gaza to allow more aid to be dropped.
Humanitarian agencies said the aid drops wouldn’t deliver enough for the 2 million people in Gaza.
Many will still have to make the long, dangerous and possibly fruitless journey to one of the GHF’s four aid depots.
The first steps
They set off after a message appears on Facebook.
“To the residents of Gaza, aid will be open tomorrow in Khan Younis in Saudi neighbourhood as of 9am. Please do not come to the location before this, as we may still be preparing the sites. The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] may still be in the area before that time.”
People immediately begin the long walk from across the strip, leaving their tents and shelters and heading towards the site they have been told will open.
The night before the site opens, some sleep in the sand dunes nearby, hoping to secure a place at the front of the growing crowd.
They want to arrive as early as possible to give themselves the best chance of getting aid.
The people massing outside the centres don’t know exactly when the gate will open, or for how long.
There’s no guarantee that after the long walk to the site they will leave with a box of food.
“Many stay for days, because distributions are inconsistent, and you never know when the next box will come,” Fayez Abu Obeyd told the ABC.
The dangerous walk to the site
The Israeli military has created long approach corridors for each of the GHF sites.
People are only allowed to enter by walking down a kind of trench.
They’re corridors made from bulldozed berms and security fences and are hundreds of metres long.
If people try to approach by another way to avoid the crush of the crowd, they say they are shot at by Israeli soldiers and tanks.
Drones also fly over those walking the trenches to the aid sites.
Hassan Abu Obeid, one of the many aid seekers, told the ABC the most dangerous part of the journey was reaching the queue at the distribution centre.
“Soldiers fire at us. Tanks are positioned nearby. They say, ‘If you’re visible, we shoot’. Just getting to the entrance is the hardest part. That’s where most people are shot,” he said.
Abu Abel described a similarly terrifying situation.
“Guards open fire on anyone who steps even slightly out of line,” he told the ABC.
“There are no warnings. A few centimetres off, and they shoot to kill, aiming for the head or chest.”
Sami Ashour said there was barely room to move in the queues.
“We’re packed so tightly that it feels claustrophobic,” he said
“Just getting to the distribution centre is incredibly difficult. There are far too many people, all desperate for the same thing.”
He said he had to risk his life “just to survive”.
“There’s no other choice,” he said.
“Either I take the risk or we have nothing.”
People have taken to calling the distribution sites cemeteries.
“That’s how deadly they’ve become,” Abu Abel said.
Abu Khaled has also been to the GHF sites.
“These aren’t aid distributions — they’re death distributions,” he told the ABC.
GHF denies its workers have shot Palestinians.
“No GHF contractor has shot at a civilian or anyone else for that matter. Period,” a GHF spokesperson said.
There is evidence the Israeli military has fired at people queuing to collect aid.
The UN said that as of July 21, 1,054 people had been killed in Gaza while trying to get food, 766 near GHF sites.
GHF and the IDF have disputed the figures and have previously denied targeting civilians.
The IDF has however admitted to firing “warning shots” towards “suspects”.
Tank at the gates
Before the site has opened, an Israeli tank is positioned outside to stop people entering, people who have been to the sites told the ABC.
GHF has been using a coloured flag to indicate when people can enter their sites to collect aid.
“We never approach until the flag is lowered and the tank moves. That’s the signal, meaning it’s finally safe to start,” Fayez Abu Obeyd said.
Palestinians told the ABC the opening times had been inconsistent and unpredictable.
GHF said the length of time its centres opened depended on the amount of aid available.
At 5am, a crowd has formed around an aid site.
At 9am, the rush starts.
“Young men often have to run when the gates open, competing to get supplies for their families,” Abu al Majed told the ABC.
Most of the people trying to get aid are young men, who have the best chance of reaching a box of aid in time.
Umm Ali, one of the few women to try reaching the sites, told the ABC she can’t reach the food before them.
She has missed out every time.
“I’ve never been able to get a single aid box,” she said.
“But I’ve seen many people killed, most of them young teenage boys. One moment they’re standing in line, and the next, a shot to the head, no warning, no reason.
“This isn’t an aid distribution. It’s a place of humiliation.”
She said trying to collect aid from the sites was not safe.
“There should be a secure, dignified way for people to access food, without risking their lives,” she said.
The GHF held a “women only” day at one of its sites last week, saying it was responding to community concern about the distribution method favouring men.
The sites generally open twice a day — in the morning and the afternoon.
That gives people two windows of about 15 minutes to grab whatever they can.
“Inside one box there’s 5kg of flour, 2kg of bulgur [wheat], 1kg of rice, 1kg of lentils, pasta, salt, tahini, and cooking oil,” Hassan Abu Obeid said.
One aid seeker, who spoke to the ABC after going to a GHF site, said all she managed to get was a kilogram of flour.
“Not even the basics,” she said.
“If I had a choice, I would never come to these distribution centres.”
It’s not just food that’s in short supply.
Fuel is scarce, and turning the ingredients in the aid boxes into food becomes another challenge.
“We cook using cardboard we collect from the streets,” Hassan Abu Obeid said.
“There’s no gas. We haven’t had gas canisters for four or five months.”
Hassan Abu Obeid even though the sites were “deadly”, people had no choice but to go there.
“We need flour, we need to feed the children,” he said.
The GHF denied that any guards it contracted had shot at Palestinians seeking aid.
GHF condemned by more than 170 aid groups
Much of the carnage has been around the three GHF sites in Gaza’s south and its other in the centre of the strip.
But there have also been reports of people being killed while trying to access aid deliveries in the north of Gaza.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has described what is said happened shortly after 25 aid trucks entered via the Zikim crossing a week ago.
“The convoy encountered large crowds of civilians anxiously waiting to access desperately needed food supplies,” the WFP said.
“As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire.”
About 80 people were killed, according to Palestinian authorities.
More than 170 aid organisations have condemned the GHF’s operations as immoral, in breach of international law and against humanitarian principles.
Bushra Khalidi, the policy lead for the occupied Palestinian territories for Oxfam, said the aid community was horrified by the large numbers of Palestinians killed around the GHF sites, as well as the way aid was distributed there.
“Massacres have happened daily at these distribution sites,” she told the ABC.
Ms Khalidi said one person her organisation had spoken with had almost died seven times in one day while trying to get flour.
“That’s not aid — that’s a death trap,” she said.
Ms Khalidi said aid delivery should be handled by independent agencies and guided by international law.
“The GHF does not abide by any of these principles, nor is it impartial because it’s run by the US, American veterans and armed actors. And the Israeli military. Nor is it independent, because it is directly tied to the Israeli military, and nor is it dignified,” she said.
“Where is the dignity in throwing food like boxes of flour and oil and pasta to the strongest? Because now it’s survival of the fittest in Gaza.”
GHF described the allegations that its operations breached international law and humanitarian principles as “completely false”.
“GHF is the only organisation right now getting in aid directly to the Palestinian people. Nearly all of the UN aid is looted and many times with people being severely injured or killed due to trampling,” a spokesperson said.
Ms Khalidi said aid should also be prioritised for the most vulnerable.
“A pregnant woman right now, a child, an elderly person, an amputee … how are they supposed to walk for five to six kilometres towards these distribution sites in the middle of the night through rubble and roads that they don’t even recognise because Israel has basically destroyed Gaza,” she said.
The GHF is also only distributing boxes of food, but people in Gaza have little access to water, gas and electricity.
“Palestinians have lost their homes and water and sanitation infrastructure has been completely destroyed,” she said.
“Electricity doesn’t exist in Gaza for the last 20 months. None of this is addressed by these food distribution sites.
“Granting Israel — an active party to this war — control over who receives the aid, where and from whom, basically has turned aid or food into a tool of control and coercion. It’s actually blurred the line between what is humanitarian assistance and what is the military objective.”