Interview with Foreign Minister Penny Wong
ABC | Sarah Ferguson | 4 August 2025
https://iview.abc.net.au/video/NC2501H121S00
Interview starts 7.00 minutes in
++++++
Dr Mohammed Mustafa
ABC | Australian Story | 4 August 2025
https://iview.abc.net.au/video/NC2502Q024S00
Dr Mohammed Mustafa (“Dr Mo”) and his plans for a children’s hospital in Gaza
++++++
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, shepherds and settlers are pushing out locals
ABC | Eric Tlozek | 4 August 2025
It is early morning in the Jordan Valley in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and a teenage boy has herded a flock of sheep next to a Palestinian family’s house and farm.
The boy is a Jewish settler, part of a group that has built a so-called outpost — a small cluster of buildings erected without permission from the Israeli government — a few hundred metres away.
He may just look like a teenager with a flock of sheep. But what is happening in this Palestinian village is far more sinister, said Oded Paporisch, an Israeli peace activist staying in the village to help protect residents from settlers.
“He brings these sheep to herd in here, maybe 20 metres from a Palestinian house … to try to terrorise them,” he said.
Armed security for settlers
Activists say “shepherd settlers” are using farming as a pretext to intimidate Palestinian farmers in the West Bank, alongside a surge in violence they say is intended to seize more land for Israelis.
Mr Paporisch, from the activist group Looking the Occupation in the Eye, described it as a form of “terrorism”.
The head of Israel’s domestic security agencies has also used the word “terrorism” to describe the actions of extremist settlers who have established bases on Palestinian farmland and attacked residents.
Salama Kaabneh, a Palestinian farmer who lives in Al Auja with his family, told the ABC that this was part of regular harassment from the settlers.
“Every day he [the settler teenager] comes here to our water, [the] feed of our sheep — and he destroys it,” he said.
“He empties water, every day he makes problems, and we cannot go out.”
Mr Kaabneh said the settlers’ sheep were also used to block his own from leaving their pen.
“They are not allowed to eat, they cannot graze, and he [the settler teenager] does whatever he wants and roams freely,” he said.
The boy was unnerved by our presence, and that of a French film crew, and called a so-called “security officer” from a nearby Jewish settlement to come.
This security officer arrived armed with an automatic rifle and laughed off any suggestion that the sheep were being used to intimidate local residents.
A settler security officer laughs off suggestions the sheep are being used to intimidate local residents.
The Palestinians hid in their homes and stopped our interview when he arrived.
“We feel besieged and psychologically exhausted,” Mr Kaabneh said.
Neither the security officer nor the boy, who was joined by a friend from the outpost, wanted to answer questions.
The local Israeli council, which is responsible for settlements in this area, did not respond to allegations that settlers were harassing and attacking Palestinians and damaging their property.
Israeli authorities ‘don’t care’
The self-professed goal of the settlement movement is to “change the facts on the ground”, taking and controlling more land in order to claim the West Bank, recognised internationally as Palestinian, as part of Israel.
Many of the settler teenagers are “at-risk” youth, who may have dropped out of school and are now partially supported by the state.
“This kid is maybe from a broken family, and they [settlers] take him to the outpost … and they help him, as strange as it sounds, to rehabilitate him,” Mr Paporisch said.
“The Israeli authorities, they don’t care. We filed a complaint many, many times, and they just don’t care about it.”
Palestinian villagers have also accused settlers from these “herding outposts” of stealing livestock and feed and damaging farm buildings.
On occasion, the settlers have also accused Palestinians of stealing sheep.
But often the problems can be much more serious.
Palestinians and human rights monitors said settlers — usually large groups of young men — have been attacking Palestinians directly.
Mr Kaabneh said the settlers often harassed the villagers.
“Filming us and coming back at night … shooting, opening fire. Throwing stones on the residents, on the shacks, causing lots of problems here,” he said.
Peace activist rabbi bashed by settlers.
Longtime peace activist Arik Ascherman, an American-Israeli rabbi who leads the group Torah Tzedek (the Torah of Justice), was recently injured during an attack by settlers on the village of Mikhmas, about 20 kilometres from Al Auja.
“I have two fractures in my neck. You can see my whole head is stapled together, I’ve got some other injuries here and there,” he said, showing the ABC bruises on his legs and metal staples on his scalp.
“When the Palestinians wanted to comfort me when I got here, I said, ‘thank you, but, of course, you get much worse.'”
The Israeli military said in a statement that the incident began when Palestinians threw stones at a Jewish shepherd, then groups of settlers and Palestinians began throwing rocks and assaulting each other.
Palestinians in the village told the ABC the settlers had started the confrontation and threatened families who were playing in a playground on the edge of the village.
“They attacked the cars, they burnt them, and of course the [Israeli] army came, the army helped them and stood by them, and went with them until the beginning of the town,” Daher, a local villager, said.
“They tried to do a lot of chaos. They had a lot of guns, they were masked, with clubs, and even one of the peace activists was beaten.”
The peace activists and Palestinians said the shepherd settlers frequently attacked villages without provocation, destroying buildings and cars and injuring anyone who tried to stop them.
Arik Ascherman said the attacks had become more frequent and more dangerous since the October 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
“That has allowed the settler movement to take advantage of the pain and anger and fear that all Israelis across the political spectrum are feeling, to do what they planned years ago, maybe even decades,” he said. “But now, there’s nothing stopping them.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it had documented 759 settler attacks in 2025 alone.
OCHA said there were an average of four incidents per day, with 492 Palestinians injured by either settlers or Israeli forces this year.
The office said 95 Palestinians were injured by settlers in June alone, the highest monthly total ever recorded.
The United Nations said attacks got worse in July, with 27 recorded in one week alone.
Three Palestinians were allegedly killed by settlers in the West Bank in July, including one, an American citizen, who was beaten to death.
Largest expansion of settlements in decades
Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law, but the Israeli government considers many of the established towns and villages to now be part of the state of Israel.
Both the number of settlements and the number of outposts, which are considered illegal even under Israeli law, have increased.
In May, Israel announced a major expansion of settlements in the West Bank, including legalising some outposts that were built without government authorisation.
All up, 22 new Jewish settlements were approved, marking the largest expansion in decades.
Mr Ascherman said the international community had done almost nothing to stop Israel from seizing more Palestinian land via settlements in the West Bank.
“They [the settlers] know that no one is going to do anything to them,” he said.
“We are far, far from the kind of pressure on Israel that would actually get them to start removing the outposts.
“The outposts … destroy any possibility of a two-state solution, because they are popping up everywhere.”
++++++
Australian, Israeli politicians react to Sydney Harbour Bridge pro-Palestinian protest
ABC | Pablo Viñales | 4 August 2025
- The pro-Palestinian march on Sydney Harbour Bridge has made worldwide headlines.
- Labor MP Ed Husic argues the scale of the gathering is a “wake up call” for Australian politicians.
- Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar criticised the march and described those in attendance as “radical” protesters.
For Shamikh Badra, who left his homeland of Gaza for Australia, his attendance at Sunday’s mammoth pro-Palestinian march across Sydney Harbour Bridge was to show “solidarity”.
But he said he was “surprised” by the sheer number of people who joined him in calling for an end to the war in Gaza — estimated by authorities to be more than 100,000 people — in rainy conditions.
“We as Palestinians are not alone … We appreciate these efforts that support Palestine,” he told ABC News.
Mr Badra, who is a PhD candidate in history and resistance movements now living in Sydney, has lost family in the conflict.
“My mother is still stuck in Gaza and my father was killed as a lack of medicine and food. My brother and his family disappeared … they’re under the rubble.
“We want the Australian government to intervene and to stop this starvation and genocide.”
The International Court of Justice has not yet made a finding of genocide and the allegation is strenuously denied by Israel, as is claims of mass starvation in Gaza.
The protests have further fuelled political debate over Australia’s position and response to the ongoing situation in war-ravaged Gaza.
Protest ‘did not bring Australians together’
Palestine Action Group’s organiser Joshua Lees said the event had been “broadcast all around the world”.
“I’ve heard really moving stories that kids in Gaza were watching our march live on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and I think it sent an unmissable message to our own government here,” he said.
The size of the march far exceeded organisers’ expectations and has made international headlines in Israel, the UK and America.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar criticised the demonstration, posting on X with an image of a protester, who appears to be holding a photo of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“The distorted alliance between the radical Left and fundamentalist Islam is sadly dragging the West toward the sidelines of history,” Mr Sa’ar said.
“In the picture: Radical protestors at Sydney Harbour Bridge today holding an image of Iran’s ‘Supreme Leader’ — the most dangerous leader of fundamentalist Islam, the world’s largest exporter of terror and a mass executioner.
“Australians, wake up!”
Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs Matt Thistlethwaite said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was seeking a “phone call” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He told Sky News it was “provocative” to display an image of Iran’s Supreme Leader but that the protest overall was peaceful.
“I don’t believe that people should have been displaying photos of the Ayatollah Khamenei. I think that’s provocative,” Mr Thistlethwaite said.
“Nonetheless, Australians have the right to protest and, as long as you do it peacefully and in accordance with the law, which is what occurred on the weekend, then every Australian has the right to protest.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chair Alex Ryvchin criticised the march and condemned the Palestine Action Group.
“Our national landmarks are there to bring Australians together. This march did not do that,” Mr Ryvchin said in a statement.
“While the majority of those who marched were no doubt there in solidarity with Gazan civilians and do not harbour pro-Hamas views, the organisers are the same group that held a pro-Palestinian rally as the October 7 massacre was still unfolding.
“Any genuine concern for humanity would have also included the forgotten people held against their will in Gaza, the tortured and broken innocents held underground for nearly two years.”
‘Wake-up call for Australian politics’
Mr Albanese said the march was “peaceful” and an opportunity for people to express their concerns about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
He reiterated his support for a two-state solution and declined to say if Australia was considering sanctions against more Israeli government ministers.
Asked if recognising a Palestinian state could complicate the relationship with the US, Mr Albanese said: “We are a sovereign nation. Australia makes our decisions as a sovereign nation.”
Federal Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said it was not reasonable to have protests about events overseas shutting down major roads in big Australian cities.
Federal Labor MP Ed Husic, who attended the march, told ABC Radio National Australian politicians have “underestimated” how strongly the community feels about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“It was a tremendous example to peaceful assembly of people coming out in force to let governments know how deeply they feel and how much they want governments to act on the concerns that they have,” Mr Husic said.
“I think this is a moment, sort of wake-up call for Australian politics.
“When I looked in that crowd, yep, you had the people that you would expect that have been there from the start protesting, but there was a lot of middle Australia there, and I think that’s something that can’t be ignored.”
Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek, who represents the inner-city seat of Sydney, told the Seven Network Australians have the right to protest peacefully.
“I think many, many Australians do want to send a message that there’s just been too much death,” she said.
“Too many people have lost their lives and we want to see the hostages returned, we want to see humanitarian access to Gaza, we particularly don’t want to see children starving to death as a result of this conflict.”
Minns defends his position on protests, ‘public safety’ concern
NSW Premier Chris Minns, who was opposed to the bridge march from the outset, acknowledged the massive turn out on Sunday but defended his position.
“Firstly, it was a massive crowd — over 100,000 people — and if the weather wasn’t appalling, I think it would have been bigger than that maybe even double the size,” Mr Minns said.
“There’s no doubt there was a massive community demonstration, huge, from the perspective of Sydney.
“A lot of people were concerned about the situation in Gaza and had incredible empathy about the Palestinian children in particular but the entire situation. I accept that there’s a huge groundswell in relation to that.”
But Mr Minns fended off questions asking if he misread the community sentiment, and said he does not regret his opposition to the protest taking place on the bridge.
“Ultimately, my job is to be on the side of public safety and ensuring that people can live and work and protest and enjoy a city as big as Sydney. It’s not an easy thing to get right,” he said.
“It’s a difficult one for the government. We have to balance public safety [and] the public’s right to protest.”
++++++
Chris Minns faces angry backlash from caucus over ‘risible’ Sydney Harbour Bridge protest stance
Members of caucus planning to move a motion condemning the conditions in Gaza and endorsing the right to protest
The Guardian | Anne Davies | 4 August 2025
The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, faces an angry backlash from within his Labor caucus when it meets on Tuesday over his stance on the pro-Palestine march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Members are planning to move a motion in caucus condemning the conditions in Gaza and endorsing the right to protest.
The march for Palestine went ahead on Sunday after the NSW supreme court overturned a decision by police to refuse a permit to march on the bridge on public safety grounds.
NSW police said initial estimates put the crowd at 90,000, while rally organisers Palestine Action Group estimated the figure was closer to 300,000.
Several Labor state MPs, including the energy minister, Penny Sharpe, and fellow frontbencher Jihad Dib joined the protest. Several other NSW Labor MPs, including Stephen Lawrence, Lynda Voltz and Sarah Kaine were at the front of the march, along with the former NSW premier Bob Carr.
Minns’ stance on protests has drawn sharp criticism from members of his own right faction as well as from the soft left, who are increasingly dismayed that Minns appears to be more attuned to the News Corp media and talkback radio than his own party.
“There’s a sense that our policy positions are at the most conservative end of the spectrum. The audience of 2GB are never, ever going to vote for us,” a member of the right faction told Guardian Australia, on the condition anonymity.
“I would just like a bit more Labor in my life,” they said.
Until now, parliamentary MPs from the hard left faction who backed Minns into the leadership have been largely silent over his clampdown on protests and other law and order issues, such as changes to bail laws and children.
The divergent approaches within the factions are causing tensions within Minns’ team.
“They’ve been completely missing in action,” said one right faction member talking about the left.
Another right faction MP said: “They haven’t come out on any progressive issues. It’s been us – the right – and some of the soft left that have been raising it, and now the base is really unhappy.”
Mark Morey, the secretary of Unions NSW, said: “When there’s a strong public hunger to protest against violence and humanitarian crises, the government’s role should be to facilitate peaceful expression, not obstruct it.”
“Yesterday’s massive turnout shows that working people across Sydney are deeply concerned about Gaza, and political leaders should listen rather than look for ways to silence them,” he said.
“The premier’s attempt to block this peaceful demonstration was a concerning overreach that the supreme court rightly rejected.”
Speaking on Monday, Minns said he did not regret his opposition to the protest march and it was his job to “be on the side of public safety”.
“I accept that there’s a huge groundswell. It’s a difficult one for the government. We have to balance public safety and the public’s right to protest … alongside running a big city like Sydney. Ultimately, my job is to be on the side of public safety,” he said.
The characterisation of his role drew a sharp response from Lawrence.
“This protest was inevitable. The only way to protect public safety was to accept that and facilitate it,” the Labor upper house member said. “The idea of suppressing a mass protest in the name of public safety is just risible.”
Lawrence said the protest organisers had offered to delay it until 24 August, but this had been rejected by a political-level refusal to accept the offer, which forced the NSW police into last-minute organisation to manage the huge crowd.
Minns on Monday foreshadowed that the government may still appeal against the ruling by justice Belinda Rigg on Saturday morning, allowing the protest to proceed. He did not rule out legislation to restrict future protests on the bridge, although he said he would not rush any legislation.
“No one should believe that it’s open season on the bridge,” he said.
Minns pointed out that in the past two years, the police had facilitated a hundred protests with the Palestine Action Group, as well as scores of other demonstrations.
The Greens MLC Sue Higginson said Minns was facing strong internal dissent over his stance and should start listening.
“Labor premier Chris Minns is acting strangely and is not listening. He has lost authority over his own caucus and on matters too significant to ignore,” she said.
“There are no current plans to march across the Harbour Bridge again, the moment has happened, it was yesterday, and the question now really has to be: where was the premier? What was more important for the premier, that he could not attend the march for humanity? There may be good reasons he did not attend, but the people do deserve to know.
“The premier also needs to understand that he has absolutely no legal power to block protests, as the courts have confirmed, and nor should he.”
++++++
Victoria police criticised for Gaza protest tactics while thousands marched ‘freely’ in Sydney
Organiser claims riot gear and bridge blockade part of ‘display of force’ against civilians as Victorian premier backs police response
The Guardian | Benita Kolovos | 4 August 2025
An organiser of a pro-Palestine protest in Melbourne’s CBD says demonstrators were left “traumatised and confused” after police blocked their path at King Street Bridge – while thousands in New South Wales were able to march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Tasnim Sammak from Free Palestine Coalition Naarm told Guardian Australia police did not inform protest organisers they were going to block the bridge before they arrived on Sunday afternoon.
Police had previously urged protesters to change their plans, claiming that blocking King Street Bridge – a major thoroughfare into Melbourne’s CBD – could delay emergency services and put lives at risk.
Sammak estimated about 25,000 people protesting against the ongoing starvation in Gaza and demanding a ceasefire marched from the State Library of Victoria through the city to the bridge and were “shocked” to be met by a “heavy police presence”.
“It was a huge display of force by Victoria police against civilians and against members of the public who have been protesting for over 90 weeks in Melbourne,” Sammak said.
Images showed police in riot gear behind barricades on King Street Bridge, backed by a row of mounted officers and riot squad vans.
Sammak said protesters initially sat down at the bridge crossing, with footage showing fellow organiser Mohammad Sharab urging the crowd to remain calm.
“We are sitting here for Palestine … peacefully,” Sharab said.
“We have women, children, vulnerable people.”
Jordan van den Lamb, a Victorian Socialists candidate known online as PurplePingers, attended the protest. He said he was “shocked” to turn on to King Street and see the bridge closed and police “kitted out in riot gear, shields, horses, armoured vehicles, the lot”.
“I think they assumed that if they shut down the bridge, the protest would be less visible but really it’s drawn more attention to the protest,” van den Lamb said.
“It would have just been done in half an hour if they hadn’t closed the bridge. It’s a bit stupid of them, really.”
He said police mostly stood silently behind their shields, with the main protest dispersing around 3pm as most attenders turned back towards the State Library.
A “small group” wearing masks and goggles stayed, van den Lamb said. Footage shows the group stopped traffic, burnt an Australian flag and spray-painted “Abolish Australia” on to Spencer Street.
In a statement, police said about 3,000 protesters gathered at the State Library on Sunday and “despite repeated requests from police, they marched to King Street”.
“As a result of this, Victoria police closed the King Street Bridge and diversions were put in place,” the statement said.
They confirmed there were no arrests but they were following up a report that an egg was thrown at a person during the protest.
Police did not answer specific questions about how many officers were deployed or the decision-making behind blocking the bridge, citing operational reasons. They said there had been no reports made to them of disruption to emergency services.
Sammak said protesters were left “feeling very traumatised and confused” by the police response, suggesting it was made at the “the encouragement” of the premier, Jacinta Allan.
“The Sydney Harbour Bridge was facilitated quite freely and easily, and there was a positive atmosphere. So why in Melbourne did we have to face riot cops?” Sammak said.
On Saturday, Allan had warned any protesters disrupting emergency services “will be dealt with swiftly”. She defended her comments on Monday, telling ABC Radio Melbourne she had been focused on “ensuring that safety wasn’t compromised”.
Allan said the protest was peaceful and backed the police response. She also said there was “a small group of extremists behaving in an extreme way”.
David Mejia-Canales, senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, said there had also been a heavy-handed response to Sydney’s protest. On Saturday, NSW police had sought an order to prohibit the protest going ahead but it was rejected by the supreme court.
“In NSW and Victoria we are seeing how anti-protest laws from the Minns and Allan governments are emboldening heavy handed policing and the repressive treatment of protesters and attempts to shut down protests,” Mejia-Canales said.
“Governments and police have a legal obligation to protect protesters, not punish or hinder people who are peacefully demonstrating and exercising their human right to demand justice.”
++++++
Burke proudly shuts down avenues to divisive debate
The Age (& SMH) | Paul Sakkai | 5 August 2025
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has vowed to protect Australians from the “tinderbox” of tension stemming from debate about the Middle East, saying he was blocking visas for potentially divisive visitors at an unprecedented rate.
Burke said he “did not care” if he was accused of stymying debate about controversial issues as he sought to put Labor’s stamp on the national security debate by committing to tough border protection and counterterrorism policies.
In an interview, Burke said a more polarised community and an attempted plane hijacking in March justified re-establishment of a Home Affairs mega-department. In its first term, Labor unwound changes made to the department by the Morrison government but put key spy and police agencies back under Burke’s control after the May election.
Denying visas for figures accused of antisemitism, including Kanye West and podcaster Candace Owens, and those who might say hateful things about Muslims, including a former Israeli right-wing minister and a pro-Israel blogger, was evidence of his determination to protect Australia’s social cohesion, Burke said.
“I really don’t care about receiving criticisms on freedom of speech. Like, do not care,” Burke said, noting he was taking a tougher approach than his predecessors on approving visas.
“People who live here have rights to freedom of speech within Australia, [but] we get to choose if someone’s coming here with the intention of … inciting discord.”
Government sources unable to speak publicly said dozens of other visas had been quietly rejected on character grounds.
Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay pushed back, saying free speech was “universal” and “central to the kind of open, democratic society Australians value”.
A day after tens of thousands of people marched in support of Gaza across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and in the Melbourne CBD, Burke countered claims from pro-Palestine activists that Labor had been weak on the Netanyahu government.
“We’ve taken sanctions against two members of their cabinet, so it’s no light touch,” Burke said of the June decision to sanction far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
“That’s a big deal. When I knocked back [a visa application from former Israeli minister Ayelet Shaked], the huge thing was that this is a former minister. We’ve since then taken sanctions against current ministers.”
Burke spoke to this masthead on Friday in his office at Parliament House, the same office occupied by Peter Dutton when he was home affairs minister. Unlike previous governments, Burke said that Labor wanted people to feel safe but without compromising security.
“The Coalition approach on this portfolio is they want people to be safe and feel afraid. The Labor approach is you want people to be safe and feel safe,” Burke said.
“Language that’s been used right back to Tony Abbott and before, had a direct impact on Muslims being abused in the street. Scott Morrison’s language had a direct impact on the Chinese community.”
In 2017, Dutton become the first minister in charge of the Home Affairs mega-department that takes in police, immigration and spy agencies. It was split up by Labor last term due to concerns about handing power to one minister and worries about maintaining proper checks on intelligence agencies.
Mark Dreyfus, the former attorney-general and barrister, was a key voice inside Labor arguing against Dutton’s super-sized portfolio. In Labor’s first term, Dreyfus was handed ASIO and the Australian Federal Police.
But after the election, Dreyfus was unceremoniously pushed out of the cabinet and Burke’s department was turned back into the all-encompassing portfolio.
Dreyfus was contacted for comment.
Burke, the member for Watson in western Sydney, is one of the prime minister’s most trusted strategists on the right of the party and is considered a rival to Treasurer Jim Chalmers to one day lead Labor.
Speaking about his expanded portfolio, Burke said the security environment described by ASIO chief Mike Burgess, characterised by online-fuelled grievances mixing rapidly to create lone-wolf actors, had strengthened the case for a central point of accountability for security inside the government.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese previously cited the Dural caravan incident, about which he was not briefed for days after the discovery of what turned out to be a planted bomb in a caravan, as justification for returning security agencies to the Home Affairs department.
“Pace is much more of an issue” in the modern era of radicalisation, Burke said, and by streamlining the department, “you get much quicker access to a full range of risks, well before they start to be confirmed”.
Burke said the attempted hijacking at Avalon airport in Victoria in March was an example.
“The simplest example that really struck me was Avalon,” he said. “The pace between someone coming into our orbit and action is truncated from what used to be months or years to, you know, potentially days.”
In the Avalon case, a teenager was detained by flight attendants after he allegedly boarded a Jetstar flight armed with a shotgun. The identities of foreigners the 17-year-old may have spoken to before the incident have been suppressed by the Children’s Court of Victoria.
++++++
Albanese seeks phone call with Netanyahu following protests
The Age (& SMH) | Nick Newling | 5 August 2025
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is pursuing a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after 90,000 people marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge calling for an end to the war in Gaza, as pressure builds within Labor for recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Albanese said on Monday he would use any phone call with Netanyahu to advocate for a two-state solution. Assistant Immigration Minister Matt Thistlethwaite had earlier confirmed that the call was being pursued, as Labor politicians backed the peaceful protest organised by the Palestine Action Group, with at least three members of the federal caucus in attendance.
Backbenchers Ed Husic, Alison Byrnes and Tony Sheldon marched with protesters on Sunday, putting further pressure on Albanese to recognise Palestine.
At a press conference on Monday, Albanese said he would continue to advocate for peace with Netanyahu.
“I have said to prime minister Netanyahu before, as I’ve said publicly for a long period of time that I’m a supporter of a two-state solution, and that there can’t be peace and security in the Middle East, without there being an advance on that two-state solution,” Albanese said.
The government has repeatedly said that recognition of a Palestinian state is a matter of timing. Allies in France, Canada and the United Kingdom have all laid the groundwork to recognise the state at the next United Nations General Assembly in September.
Albanese ruled out any further sanctions against Israeli figures, following those already placed on ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich in June for inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Speaking about the Harbour Bridge protest, Albanese said he was not surprised so many felt moved to march after seeing images of “people being deprived of food and water and essential services” in Gaza.
“In a democracy, it’s a good thing that people peacefully express their views, and yesterday’s march was peaceful and was an opportunity for people to express their concern about what is happening in Gaza,” Albanese said.
“Australians want people to stop killing each other. They want peace and security. But the second thing they want is they don’t want conflict brought here.”
Thistlethwaite earlier condemned any forms of antisemitism or pro-Iran sentiments at the protest, telling Sky News that people holding images of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei were wrong.
“A phone call [with Netanyahu] is being pursued. I don’t believe that people should have been displaying photos of the Ayatollah Khamenei. I think that’s provocative,” he said.
As long as you do it peacefully and in accordance with the law, which is what occurred on the weekend, then every Australian has the right to protest.”
Husic told ABC Radio National he hoped the government would immediately recognise a Palestinian state, arguing the protest sent a signal to Albanese that people want further action.
“I think Australian politics has underestimated how strongly Australians feel about this issue … I think this is a moment, a sort of wake-up call for Australian politics,” he said.
“There was a lot of middle Australia there, and I think that’s something that can’t be ignored.”
Husic marched alongside Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, journalist Antoinette Lattouf, former Labor foreign minister and NSW premier Bob Carr, and Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi at the front of Sydney’s protest.
About 25,000 protesters marched in a concurrent protest through the Melbourne CBD.
The chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Alex Ryvchin, said the Palestine Action Group was extreme because it organised a protest immediately after October 7, 2023, when Hamas murdered about 1200 Israelis and abducted another 250.
“The fact that these people have now held yesterday’s rally and brought maybe tens of thousands of unwitting people with them who think they’re there for a cause of peace when truly they’re not, they’re being manipulated … that’s what’s disappointing,” Ryvchin told Sky News on Monday.
++++++
Synagogue targeted with graffiti by man in Scream mask
The Age | Angus Delaney & Alexander Darling | 5 August 2025
A man wearing a mask from the horror movie Scream has sprayed offensive graffiti on a historic synagogue in South Yarra five times since March.
CCTV footage shows a lone man wearing a white mask approach the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation in South Yarra on an e-scooter before vandalising the synagogue. He then fled on the scooter.
Police say he scrawled graffiti on the synagogue on March 11, June 21, June 22, July 22, and July 30. In the July incidents, he wore a Scream mask, police said, but on other occasions, he wore different face coverings, such as a bandana.
Speaking to The Age on Monday morning, the synagogue’s Rabbi Shlomo Nathanson said the act was cowardly.
“[It] weighs heavy on individuals … where they see the Australia that they love and have contributed to and have been a part of and called home for such a long time, to bring their children to a place of worship … and have to shield them … from the hatred that is lurking just outside the doors,” Nathanson said.
He said such antisemitic incidents had tarnished Australia’s reputation internationally.
“We have a member who was just recently visiting in Israel who’s come back and said that everyday Israelis, who look at the headlines, are saying, ‘Oh, you’re from Australia. I’m so sorry for everything that’s going on there.’
“And you know their world has turned upside down because they used to have so much pride in saying I’m from Australia.”
Nathanson said pro-Palestine protests, like the one that drew thousands of supporters in the Melbourne CBD on Sunday, fuelled incidents like the graffiti when they went unchecked.
During the June 21 and 22 incidents, which coincided with Israel’s war on Iran, the man sprayed “Iran is Da Bomb” and “Free Palestine” on the building’s heritage-listed facade.
Speaking on Monday afternoon, Detective Inspector Martin McLean said the man police were seeking was balding, of medium build and Caucasian.
He said police weren’t sure why the man was targeting the South Yarra synagogue in particular.
“We’re certain there are people out there who know this person or who have seen this person in the area before or after [the incidents],” McLean said.
“At this stage, there is nothing to suggest he is working with anyone else. We have been patrolling significantly in these areas since we identified this was an issue.”
Last week, police revealed they were investigating whether deported underworld figure Kazem “Kaz” Hamad was involved in the unrelated firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea.
Police believe overseas criminals worked with Victorian associates in the arson attack, which rocked the state’s Jewish community in December and is being investigated as politically motivated.
++++++
US and Israeli officials float idea of ‘all or nothing’ Gaza deal
The Age (& SMH) / NY Times | Isabel Kershner & Aaron Boxerman | 5 August 2025
Jerusalem: For months, the Israeli government had focused on negotiating a two-phased deal for a 60-day ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of some hostages, leaving discussions about a permanent end to the war for a later stage.
With the talks now at an impasse, US and Israeli officials appear to be sharply changing their tone by signalling they will push for a comprehensive deal. But Israel and Hamas remain far apart, and analysts said this new approach would also face steep challenges.
The shift, at least in rhetoric, comes as the Israeli government faces rising domestic pressure to secure the release of hostages still held in Gaza.
Israel believes about 20 are still alive and that the bodies of 30 others remain in the enclave. Videos released at the weekend showed two living captives looking emaciated and frail, shocking many Israelis and sparking fear among the hostages’ families.
The Israeli government has also come under mounting international criticism over the mass hunger that has spread through Gaza’s population of about 2 million after Israel imposed strict restrictions in recent months on the entry of aid.
Israel has continued launching military strikes on Gaza, even as it has facilitated the entry of more aid into the area in recent days.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said on Sunday that Israeli artillery had hit its offices in Khan Younis, killing one of the aid group’s staff and injuring others. The Israeli military did not immediately comment.
Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s special envoy to the Middle East, who is visiting the region, met families of Israeli hostages on Saturday and told them President Donald Trump now wanted to see all the living hostages released at once.
“No piecemeal deals, that doesn’t work,” he said, according to an audio recording of part of the meeting published by the Ynet Hebrew news site.
“Now we think that we have to shift this negotiation to ‘all or nothing’ – everybody comes home,” he said. “We have a plan around it,” he added, without elaborating. A participant in the meeting confirmed that Witkoff made such remarks.
Israel and Hamas do not negotiate directly. Instead, negotiations for a ceasefire between the two sides have run through intermediaries: the United States, Qatar and Egypt.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump are said to be working on a new proposal that would involve presenting Hamas with an ultimatum, according to reports in the Israeli news media that were confirmed on Sunday by a person familiar with the matter. The White House was not immediately available for comment.
Under the terms of the ultimatum, Hamas would have to release the remaining hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and agree to terms to end the war that include the group’s disarmament. Otherwise, the Israeli military would continue its campaign.
‘This has been our demand from the beginning’
Mahmoud Mardawi, a Hamas official, said the Palestinian armed group had yet to receive a formal Israeli proposal for a comprehensive deal from Arab mediators. He said that while Hamas supported such an agreement in principle, it would not disarm, which has long been a core Israeli condition.
“This has been our demand from the beginning: an end to the war, the release of prisoners, and day-after arrangements in the Gaza Strip – a clear and comprehensive deal,” Mardawi said in a phone interview.
The prospects of any rapid advancement towards such a deal appear dim.
Hamas has consistently rejected Israel’s terms for ending the war throughout the negotiations. On Saturday, the group said in a statement that it would not disarm unless a Palestinian state was established, despite a call from Arab states last week for the group to do so.
The Israeli government opposes Palestinian statehood.
On Sunday, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Israeli national security minister, visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which Jews revere as the Temple Mount, long a tinderbox for Israeli-Palestinian tensions. Arab leaders denounced Ben-Gvir’s ascent to the site – during which he openly prayed – as a provocation.
“It’s important to convey from this place that we should immediately conquer Gaza, exercise our sovereignty there, and eliminate every last Hamas member,” Ben-Gvir said from the site, in a video shared by his office.
Many Israelis say they support a comprehensive deal to return all the hostages and end the war. But many are sceptical that such a deal can be achieved under the conditions set by the hardline Israeli government, which has vowed to continue fighting until Hamas surrenders or is destroyed.
On Sunday night, Netanyahu argued that Hamas did not want a deal and vowed to press on in the attempt “to release our captive sons, eliminate Hamas and ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel”.
Given the firm positions of both sides, an Israeli and American push for a comprehensive deal may not bring an agreement closer, according to analysts.
“Hamas is essentially saying to Israel: ‘If you want the 20 living hostages out, give us a full victory’,” said Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an independent research group.
Hamas’ terms are far beyond what Netanyahu would accept, Yaari said. But, he added, the prime minister “has to keep convincing the Israeli public and his own voters that he is doing everything he can, and he has to reassure the families of the hostages”.
Mardawi said Hamas saw little reason to negotiate with Israel, given the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.
“What is the point of talks when people are dying of starvation?” he said.
++++++
Hostage’s family begs Netanyahu to rescue him
The Age (& SMH) / AP, Reuters | 5 August 2025
Deir al-Balah/Jerusalem: The family of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza has begged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rescue their son after a new propaganda video showed him lying weak and emaciated on a mattress, while pleading for food and water.
“I’ve run out of food and water,” Rom Braslavski says. “Before, they would give me a little bit; today, there is nothing at all. Three pieces of falafel, that’s what I ate today. Yesterday, I barely ate a plate of rice. “I’m on the verge of death, and I’m sure that, like me, all the other prisoners are in the same mental and physical state. Please, stop this hell that we are in. Please, stop this suffering that we are in. Just give us food- if not for the Gaza Strip, then for the hostages. Please bring us food and water.”
The hostage video is the second to be published with family permission in as many days. Footage of another emaciated hostage, Evyatar David, appearing to dig his own grave, filmed by someone whose arm seemed to be of regular width, triggered outrage across Israel on the weekend and condemnation of Hamas, as the Netanyahu government faces international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza.
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday, US time, that he wanted Israel to get food into the enclave. “We want the people fed. We want Israel to get them fed,” Trump said before boarding Air Force One in Pennsylvania. “We don’t want people going hungry and we don’t want them to starve, and there’s some bad things happening.”
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said nearly 1600 aid trucks had arrived since Israel eased restrictions late last month. However, witnesses and Hamas sources said many of those trucks had been looted by desperate dis placed people and armed gangs.
After the footage of David was released on the weekend, his family called on Israel to do more to ensure food aid reached the remaining hostages in Gaza. Tens of thousands of people also rallied in Tel Aviv, urging Israel and the US to urgently pursue the hostages’ release after suspending ceasefire talks with Hamas.
Netanyahu said he had asked the Red Cross to help the hostages, including by providing food and medical care, during a conversation with the head of the Switzerland-based aid group’s local delegation. He also said the videos had made him more determined to eliminate Hamas.
The Red Cross said it was “appalled by the harrowing videos” and called for access to the hostages. Hamas said on Sunday, Gaza time, that it was prepared to co-ordinate with the Red Cross to deliver aid to the hostages it was holding in Gaza if Israel met certain conditions, including permanently opening humanitarian corridors and halting airstrikes during the distribution of aid.
Hospitals in Gaza said 33 more Palestinians seeking aid had been killed by Israeli fire on Sunday, and six adults had died of malnutrition in the previous 24 hours. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society also said a staff member had been killed when Israeli forces shelled its office. Israel’s military said it was reviewing the Red Crescent’s claim.
According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive. Hamas has barred humanitarian organisations from having any access to the hostages, and families have little or no details of their conditions.
The Braslavski family authorised the publication of part of the footage of their son on Sunday, Tel Aviv time, after the Palestinian Islamic Jihad released a longer video of him on Thursday. Braslavski, 21, was taken hostage from a music festival during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The PIJ said that since the footage was filmed, it had lost contact with those holding Braslavski. In comments reported by The Times of Israel, Braslavski’s father said he was watching his son die before his eyes, and that in a personal phone call with Netanyahu on Saturday, he had told the prime minister to get his son out of Gaza immediately.
Braslavski’s mother, Tami, said in a statement that she had made the difficult decision to release the footage to ensure the world knew of her son’s suffering. “The nightmare I was only afraid to imagine is real. The fear we live with has become more tangible than ever, and it’s important that the whole world sees this, despite my personal difficulty in publicly showing my Rom in the dire condition he’s in,” she said, adding she had never seen her son as he had appeared in the footage.
“Rom is not shouting or encourage voluntary emigration,” he said on a video posted on social media after his visit. He also raged against the angry – he speaks quietly, in a weak voice like a person who has accepted the fact that there’s nothing left to fight for and he may not come out of there alive.”
Meanwhile, far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited and prayed at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site on Sunday, triggering regional condemnation and sparking fears that the provocative move could further escalate tensions.
Photos and videos showed the national security minister leading Jewish prayers at the compound, which is known by Jews as the Temple Mount, in the walled Old City of occupied East Jerusalem. The hillside area was home to the ancient biblical temples.
Muslims call the site the Noble Sanctuary. Today, it is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. Visits by Israeli officials are considered a provocation around the Muslim world, and openly praying violates a long-standing status quo. Jews have been allowed to tour the site but are barred from praying.
During his visit, Ben-Gvir called for Israel to annex the Gaza Strip and encourage Palestinians to leave, reviving rhetoric that has complicated peace negotiations. “From here, we need to bring a message and ensure that from today, we conquer all of the Gaza Strip, declare sovereignty over all of the Gaza Strip, take out every Hamas member, and videos released of the hostages and called it an attempt to pressure Israel.
Ben-Gvir’s previous visits have prompted threats from Palestinian militant groups. Clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian demonstrators in and around the site fuelled an 11-day war with Hamas in 2021. His visit was condemned as an incitement by Palestinian leaders as well as by Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
About 1200 people were killed in the 2023 Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza, and another 251 were abducted. Israel’s retaliatory military offensive had killed more than 60,800 Palestinians, Gaza’s health ministry said. The ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, is staffed by medical professionals.
The UN and other independent experts view its figures as the most reliable count of casualties. Israel has disputed the figures but it hasn’t provided its own account of casualties.
++++++
Gaza Protests
The Age | Letters (1) | 5 August 2025
Closure of city bridge by authorities a step too far
The perversity of Sunday’s police blockade of Kingsway to prevent a peace rally blocking this bridge was self-evident (“100,000 march in Melbourne and Sydney to protest Israel’s bombardment of Gaza”, 3/8). The pretext was always tenuous: temporary closure of a single Yarra crossing was never “life-threatening”, reflected in Sydney’s judicial precedent. But this display sends a chilling message. Is there an element within police command with an agenda to suppress civil expression? This has happened before in Melbourne, but was quickly rebalanced. The 1971 protest against the sports-washing apartheid era Springbok rugby tour was met with an unprovoked cavalry charge and random baton bashing of many participants and observers, including ABC’s Noel Norton hit while on-camera. The backlash resulted in a more restrained and proportionate approach to policing of growing anti-Vietnam War rallies, which swung Australian attitudes and political decisions. Hopefully some positive changes – for both policing and for Gaza may also flow from Sunday’s low point in Victoria’s approach to policing of community ex pression.
Rod Duncan, Brunswick East
Disruption unnecessary
The east coast of Australia is approximately 14,000 kilometres from the Gaza Strip. I am at loss to understand why the pro-Palestinian protesters are closing down critical infrastructure in Melbourne and Sydney, such as major bridges, which results in significant traffic disruption and inconvenience for many (“Bridges to peace”, 4/8). How this can provide any tangible beneficial outcomes for Gazans, it eludes me.
Dennis Walker, North Melbourne
Part of a bigger cause
The suggestion by your correspondent (“Unseen, uncaring?”, Letters 3/8) that Palestinian-focused protests ignore other atrocities misunderstands the broad, intersectional scope of these movements. The weekly CBD protests do not exist in isolation or ignorance of Sudan, the Congo, West Papua, or any number of global catastrophes. In fact, they consistently amplify a wide spectrum of struggles: against settler colonialism, war crimes, environmental destruction, racism, transphobia, and the brutal treatment of refugees. To imply that protesters only care about Gaza is to erase the deep, informed compassion that drives our protest actions, and the global solidarity that under pins them. Movements for justice understand that Sudanese lives, like Palestinian, East Timorese, Tamil, and Indigenous lives, matter deeply. And are all bound by structures of imperialism, corporate greed, and racial violence.
Paul Evans, Carrum Downs
Not manipulated
The comments by Alex Ryvchin, chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, that tens of thousands of Sydneysiders were “manipulated”, and were “unwitting” participants in a peaceful protest are strikingly similar to the comments made by Liberals that Liberal voters were conned and duped into voting for teals in 2022. I think in both cases the people knew exactly what they were doing.
Anastasios Moralis, Ormond
Food as a weapon
The video of Evyatar David (“Outrage after Hamas releases video of emaciated Israeli hostage”, 3/8) is devastating. His suffering is real, and my heart breaks for him and his family. But it must not be used to dis tract from the broader horror. On the same day the footage was released, six Palestinians died of starvation, according to Gaza’s health ministry. More than 1 million are facing famine-like conditions. Hostages are suffering. So are 2 million civilians. In the video, David says his portion of food is meant to last two days. Maybe that wasn’t just a cry for himself- but for everyone trapped un der siege. Israel’s blockade has turned Gaza into a place where food is a weapon. That blockade is still in place.
Lila Malagi, Flinders
++++++
Limits of recognition
The Age | Letters (2) | 5 August 2025
Ben Saul’s argument blaming Israel for the failure to achieve a Palestinian state (“We should recognise Palestine. Now” 4/8) ignores the history. Israel accepted the UN partition plan for two states in 1948. The Arab leaders refused, instead starting a war designed to destroy the Jewish state. Israel offered a Palestinian state encompassing almost all the Palestinians claimed to want at Camp David in 2000, upped the offer in 2001, and improved it again in 2008. Palestinian leaders rejected each offer, and various subsequent Israeli initiatives designed to lead to peace. Since 2014, the Palestinian Authority has refused to speak to Israel at all.
In 2005, Israel totally withdrew from Gaza, and instead of a peaceful neighbour, got a Hamas-run terror enclave. Saul says the root cause of Hamas terrorism is the occupation, but, like ISIS, the cause is the fundamentalist determination that the whole area be under Islamist rule. Recognition now would just show the Palestinians that rejectionism and terrorism work – senior Hamas official Gazi Hamad said the moves to recognition are the fruit of October 7. Re cognition should only come once Hamas no longer rules Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority genuinely negotiates a two-state peace, as required by the Oslo Accords it signed.
Jamie Hyams, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, Melbourne
++++++
Minns’ stand on the bridge: ‘It’s not open season’
Sydney Morning Herald | 5 August 2025
Premier Chris Minns has warned “it’s not open season on the bridge” as the government scrambles to determine whether Sunday’s march on the Sydney landmark will set a precedent for future demonstrations.
The peaceful march – which on police estimates comprised 90,000 people, though organisers put that figure at 200,000 to 300,000 – passed without arrests or injuries as the demonstrators called for sanctions against Israel and the free flow of aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza.
Minns said his government was considering whether a judgment in the Supreme Court to authorise the protest would make it easier for other groups to stage similar marches, after Sunday’s action cost the state “millions”.
“No one should assume it’s open season on the bridge,” he said. “We’re not going to have a situation where the anti-vac cine group has it one Saturday, and then the weekend after that, critical mass takes over and then the weekend after that we have an environmental cause, and then the weekend after that … an industrial dispute.”
Minns said the government’s response to such a precedent would have to balance the right to protest with the right to get access to the city on weekends. Last-minute changes to the route on Sunday created confusion, compounded when police sent out several text messages directing marchers not to proceed to North Sydney as planned and instead to turn back.
Asked whether the confusion potentially turned a peaceful demonstration into a catastrophe, Minns backed the actions of police. “I think you’d be a real hard marker to knock police here,” he said. “It’s a logistically difficult thing to navigate because you’ve got a confined space and an overwhelming number of people.”
The government would not rush through legislation to ban protests on the bridge, he said, given the risk it could be challenged in the High Court as un constitutional. He would not rule anything out.
The state opposition wants the Harbour Bridge shielded from all protests. Asked about legislation to stop marches on the bridge, Nationals MP Paul Toole said, “it’s something we have to be looking at”.
“My biggest concern is that someone who needs access to a hospital, someone who needs to get into the CBD, is impacted … so yes, we need to make sure that there is protection on critical infrastructure like the bridge,” he said. On Sunday evening, police said the event had been “perilous” and came “very close” to a “catastrophic situation”, and that they needed more than the week’s notice they were given to safely enable the march.
On Friday, they had argued their case in the Supreme Court, presenting concerns of a crowd-crush, but Justice Belinda Rigg ultimately found the right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly outweighed any inconvenience caused. Police Minister Yasmin Catley said police handled the event “brilliantly … Never before has there been a protest of that magnitude in our city, and given that it was incident free, I have to say thank you to the NSW Police.”
“They are experts when it comes to crowd management, and they certainly displayed that skill when fronted with a protest that was brought about with just a few days’ notice, described as up to 100,000 people,” she said.
The Harbour Bridge was closed for about five hours for the march, attended by Labor and Greens MPs, former Socceroo Craig Foster, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, former NSW premier Bob Carr and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore. Amal Naser, an organiser with the Palestine Action Group, celebrated the march as a “magnificent day” with huge crowd numbers helped by publicity from the court challenge.
On ABC radio, Naser challenged police claims the event was “perilous” at times. “I think the police have a bit over-exaggerated the events … in an attempt to undermine our win in the Supreme Court,” she said. “This was a peaceful rally, there were no injuries, and everyone was absolutely safe and felt safe throughout the whole march.
++++++
Peaceful approach ensured bridge march was a success
Sydney Morning Herald | Letters | 5 August 2025
I walked across the bridge with about 90,000 fellow citizens on Sunday, and it was inspiring (“90,000 halt city with march across Harbour Bridge”, August 3). There was no disruption of any kind, despite police warnings of a “perilous” situation. Far from it. There were all kinds of people – the disabled, older people with walkers or scooters, parents, children and babies, and I didn’t hear an angry word exchanged. Mostly the chanting and the posters were various versions of “free Palestine” and “stop the war in Gaza”. There were anti-Israel messages, too, and some may have struck a discordant note, but no one spoke out against any other protester. It was truly a peace rally. As for the “catastrophe” the police warned of, the only danger I could see was few piles of horse manure, courtesy of the police mounted unit.
Carolyn Quadrio, Randwick NSW
Police acting deputy commissioner Peter McKenna said Sunday’s Harbour Bridge march came “very close to a cat astrophic situation”. Yes, it did, but the peaceful marchers saved the situation. Most crowd catastrophes involve pushing people into a confined space or a dead end. The march had both, but worse. Police made marchers turn around and walk back directly into the oncoming marchers. The police could not have set up a better plan for a catastrophe. I know they’ll blame the organisers, but if the police and Premier Chris Minns had read the room, they would have understood the heat of public opinion about Gaza and know that thousands were going to march and planned accordingly. It could not have been planned and executed worse.
John Clark, Terrey Hills
So Peter McKenna claims the police were “forced” to turn people around on the Harbour Bridge. I disagree. The problems were caused by closing Bradfield Highway and leaving only the narrow Milsons Point exit open. This meant people in wheelchairs, walking frames and parents with strollers had to navigate narrow flights of stairs. Sending random text messages and using loudhailers to tell a large crowd to turn back on itself is a recipe for disaster.
Joanna Mendelssohn, Dulwich Hill
As one of the people on the Harbour Bridge on Sunday, I would love to know what situation was so close to “catastrophic” that the NSW Police decided to trap the crowds in the confined space of the bridge with no way back or forward. We were stopped dead, with thousands coming up behind us. Elderly people and parents of young children were visibly distressed. Police texts said stop and await directions, but none were given. Security guards had no answers for people asking where we were supposed to go to avoid being crushed. What was so catastrophic on the other side that we couldn’t walk over the bridge to disperse? Police took a very real risk with public safety. It was chaos. Luckily for them the crowds were patient and took good care of each other, focused as they were on protesting without being sidetracked by police mismanagement or silly games.
David Snell, Enmore
I wish to thank those who crossed the Harbour Bridge with me. Their good-natured attitude prevented a disaster after the police decided to stop the progress at the north side of the bridge while the majority of the people were still crossing. The police panicked, the public did not. The police handling of the situation displayed poor planning, poor decision-making and poor communication. The announcements from Polair could not be deciphered. The SMS messages were ambiguous and unhelpful. The calm response of the marchers avoided a disaster.
Siobhan Mullany, Pyrmont
The leadership of the Palestine Action Group has proved to be most impressive. Having the boldness to target the Harbour Bridge, galvanising interest groups and the media, defying the premier, convincing the Supreme Court not to inter fere, forcing the police and transport authorities into a last-minute scramble and convincing nearly 100,000 to come out in the driving rain. And the prize? Pictures beamed across the world of tens of thousands marching across the bridge alongside the black, red, green and white of Palestine, effectively snubbing Israel and demonstrating to an international audience Australians’ sol idarity with the people of Gaza. You would have to say “well played”.
Doug Walker, Baulkham Hills
My wife and I joined the March for Gaza on the Harbour Bridge. We were very impressed with the atmosphere and empathy of the marchers. A statement from organiser Josh Lees that it was “a beautiful, inspiring outpouring of humanity” re ally captured it. The police claim that it was close to catastrophe was just ridiculous, with the only problem arising when the police stopped the march and turned people around. Even this was resolved peacefully and calmly. I sincerely hope our political leaders were paying attention.
Bill Munro, Point Frederick
Alexandra Smith states that Sydney took a stand for humanity without turning its back on the Jewish community (“This was the day Sydney took a stand for humanity”, August 4). However, a real march for humanity would not have ignored the hostages still captive and starving in Gaza. It would have called for peace, rather than sanctions, intifada and “death”. It would have called out Hamas for their acts of barbarity. It would not have platformed the Ayatollah, nor displayed swastikas and Hamas’ inverted triangle of death. These acts and omissions meant this was less a march for humanity and more a march of hate.
David Ziegler, Dover Heights
I took part in the march with my family and a friend aged 84 with a prosthetic leg. He did well on the long walk over the bridge. However, when we were suddenly ordered to turn around and walk back he was unable to do so, owing to extreme fatigue. The crowd were tremendously well-behaved and there was no sign at all of “possible catastrophe”. A policeman I told about my friend’s condition asked him very rudely why he had bothered to come at all. We then somehow ended up in the wrong queue for North Sydney station, so I asked a woman officer if my friend could enter near the top as he was exhausted. In a very officious manner, she told him to join the end of the queue again 200 metres away. Another elderly lady arrived and she was told the same thing. I found the police very rude and unkind to elderly people who needed help.
Patricia McCudden, Oatley
Despite the foul weather, nearly 100,000 protesters marched in support of the Palestinian cause, but police decided to block the exit on the north side and turn people around into the path of those approaching. They stood idly by as people were not clearly informed about what was happening. There were young children and people in wheelchairs on the march, yet there was no attempt from the police to mitigate the risk of a crush. I’m very disappointed with the NSW po lice force.
Kenny Macintyre, North Ryde
On behalf of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, thank you for yesterday’s front page. In a media climate of distortion and silence, the Herald showed a city united for humanity, with Australians of many hues and backgrounds grieving yet resolute. You gave moral clarity to a moment many would rather blur. As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepens, we urge you and your readers to support calls for an immediate, protected humanitarian corridor to deliver food, medicine and dignity to a besieged people. Thank you again to the editorial team, reporters, photographers and all who helped produce the front cover and the accompanying articles.
Keysar Trad, Yagoon
++++++
Bridge turnaround order was right but poorly conveyed
Sydney Morning Herald | Milad Hagharni | 5 August 2025
At some point during Sunday’s pro-Palestine march across Sydney Harbour Bridge, NSW Police decided to send geo-targeted text messages asking participants to stop walking north. The concern, they said, was a potential bottleneck at the northern end of the bridge, where dispersal options and train access were limited.
Was it an overreaction? Was there a genuine crowd safety risk? I believe it’s not fair to judge the police response simply because no disaster occurred. In real-time risk management, you rarely have complete information. You act based on estimated probabilities and the potential severity of consequences if things go wrong.
In this case, having considered the risk factors and the level of uncertainty, I believe police acted in the interest of public safety. Sydney Harbour Bridge is not a narrow structure; it’s almost 50 metres wide. But any fixed piece of infrastructure can be come overwhelmed if enough people are on it.
Once a crowd is committed to the bridge there are no lateral escape routes or conservative safety assumptions. soft dispersal zones. That makes it harder to manage crowd pressure or respond quickly if something goes wrong. The Supreme Court ruling that gave the go-ahead for the event came less than 24 hours before it took place.
That left very little time for anyone to carry out formal crowd-flow analysis. As a result, safety on the day depended almost entirely on how well things were managed in real time. Decisions had to be made on the spot. There was little time to estimate how many people would turn up.
Even after the event, the numbers are still being de bated. On the day, it’s likely that police had to rely on quick estimates, often using aerial views to judge how crowded the bridge was. But the rain would have made that more difficult. Many people were using umbrellas, which would make crowd density more difficult to assess.
Another risk factor was the make-up of the crowd. This wasn’t a uniform group of adults. It included families, children, older people. In a crowd crush, it’s often smaller or less physically capable people who are affected the most. A diverse crowd requires more Further to that, rain changes how people move, just like it changes how traffic flows.
On the road, even a light shower can slow things down and cause bottlenecks. The same applies to crowds on foot. Especially when people are holding umbrellas, they take up more space and move more cautiously. Studies show that pedestrian f low can drop by 20 to 40 per cent in one direction, and by up to 50 per cent when they move in both directions. The police intervention was far from perfect, though.
The first NSW Police geo-targeted text message, sent at 3pm, read: “Message from NSW Police: In consultation with the organisers, the march needs to stop due to public safety and await further instructions.” The intention was to slow down the upstream crowd due to concerns about a potential choke-point forming at the northern end of the bridge.
Whether the message was clear enough to achieve that outcome is debatable. While a later follow-up message provided a clearer directive, protesters may have interpreted the message differently. Compliance is never 100 per cent. Some may have ignored it, thought it was spam, or didn’t believe it was serious. Others may have stopped, while some turned around. That meant creating a two-way pedestrian flow which adds its own risks and complications.
That said, if there were serious concerns that the northern end couldn’t be cleared quickly enough, holding back the flow upstream was probably necessary. Would a crowd crush have occurred without police intervention?
The likelihood, in my estimate, was low. The more likely outcome would have been discomfort, pressure and a degree of crowding chaos — simi lar to what we sometimes see during peak moments at Vivid, where people grow anxious and complaints follow. But if it had reached a near crush situation even with no injuries we’d probably be having a very different conversation. We would be asking why police didn’t step in earlier.
Milad Haghani is an associate professor of Urban Risk, Resilience & Mobility at The University of Melbourne
++++++
Time for Israel’s friends to intervene
Sydney Morning Herald / NY Times | David French | 5 August 2025
I think it’s fair to describe me as a Christian Zionist. I believe in the necessity of the Jewish people to have their own secure homeland. And while I have never thought Israel was perfect (far from it), I have seen the antisemitism and genocidal intent animating its enemies in the Middle East.
I can see too extraordinary antisemitism and bias in the larger international community. When a United Nations that includes North Korea, Syria, Russia and China condemns Israel more than any other nation in the world, you know the Jewish state is being singled out.
I’m also a veteran of the Iraq War who served as judge advocate for an armoured cavalry regiment during the surge in Iraq in 2007 and 2008. Before I became a journalist, I was part of a legal team that defended Israel from war crime accusations after Operation Cast Lead, the Gaza war of 2008 and 2009.
I know Israel had the right under international law to destroy Hamas’ military and to remove Hamas from power after the massacre on October 7, 2023. In other words, Israel had the right to respond to a terrorist force such as Hamas the way the United States and its allies responded to a terrorist force such as the Islamic State group after it launched its terrorist campaign across the Middle East and across Europe.
So, yes, I consider myself a friend of Israel. But now its friends need to stage an intervention. The Israeli government has gone too far. It has engineered a staggering humanitarian crisis, and that crisis is both a moral atrocity and a long-term threat to Israel itself. Civilian casualties were in evitable when Israel responded to Hamas, but the suffering of Palestinian civilians is far be yond the bounds of military necessity.
The people of Gaza, already grieving the loss of thousands of children, now face a famine – and children once again will bear the brunt of the pain. If you’re sceptical of this claim, consider two factors – the numbers and the timing. The amount of aid flowing into the Gaza Strip has sharply diminished.
Before Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas and blocked aid shipments in March, the amount of aid entering Gaza had soared. Then it dropped to virtually nothing, and even after Israel lifted its blockade in May, the amount of aid flowing into Gaza was a small fraction of what it had been.
Compounding the problem, the method of distributing what little aid is available requires thousands of Palestinians to travel long distances, which imposes an extreme hardship on the most vulnerable people the very old, the very sick and the very young. Palestinians also have to cross military lines, which creates its own risk of violence as thousands of hungry civilians encounter heavily armed soldiers on high alert.
Hundreds of Palestinians in search of food have been killed, many of them by Israeli soldiers. So there is less aid, and it’s harder and more dangerous to obtain. The decrease in aid would be dreadful on its own, but what makes it incalculably worse is the timing. Israel’s aid blockade came after a year and a half of war, when Hamas is decimated, Gaza’s government is largely dismantled and chaos reigns.
The dominant power in Gaza is Israel, not Hamas, and Israel, not Hamas, is the only entity with both the power to control aid distribution and the ability to obtain and distribute aid in the Gaza Strip. There is no way for civilians in Gaza to feed themselves. They are utterly dependent on Israel, and Israel re moved the UN from the aid distribution network without an effective alternative.
Anyone who has spent time fighting al-Qaeda, Islamic State or Hamas knows that those groups think civilian suffering advances their cause. So why is Israel giving Hamas what it wants? Hamas should lay down its arms and release every hostage. But Hamas’ war crimes do not relieve Israel of its own moral and legal obligations.
This is a moment of short-term strength and long-term vulnerability for Israel. Its foes are militarily the weakest they’ve been in more than a generation. However, European and US public support for Israel is in a state of collapse. A May YouGov poll found that public support for Israel in Western Europe was the lowest ever.
A July Gallup poll found that only 32 per cent of Americans approved of Israel’s military actions in Gaza. But don’t take collapsing support for Israel as proof that nations support Hamas. Last week, all 22 members of the Arab League and all 27 members of the EU urged Hamas to disarm, release all the remaining hostages and surrender control of Gaza.
Donald Trump who ordered strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities – describes what’s happening in Gaza as “real starvation” and says, “I told Israel, maybe they have to do it a different way”. Israel’s defenders can right fully complain that nations with far worse human rights violations receive far less scrutiny. Where are the protests, they ask, against North Korean gulags? Or against the Chinese oppression of the Uyghurs?
But again, Israel has moral responsibilities, regardless of Western hypocrisy, and it still needs those Western friends. No nation – not even the US can thrive without allies, and Israel (despite its nuclear weapons) is far more vulnerable and dependent on international friendship than the US, UK or France. If Israel creates a lasting rift with its European allies and shatters the long-standing bi partisan American consensus on aiding Israel, then the long-term consequences could be grave.
One of the most frustrating aspects of our political dis course is the expectation that once you’re identified on a side, you are somehow betraying your side if you speak up when it goes wrong. Partisans are used to ignoring their opponents, but there’s a chance they will listen to their friends. Israel’s friends must speak with one voice: End the famine in Gaza. Drop any talk of annexation. Protect the civilian population. Defeating Hamas does not re quire starving a single child.
++++++
Jewish women reflect on their ruptured world
The Australian | Cameron Stewart | 5 August 2025
For Jewish women in Australia it was the deafening sound of silence that first alerted them to the wave of anti-Semitism about to sweep across the country.
The silence was from women’s groups, feminists and the UN about the rape and torture of Jewish women by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023. While women’s groups were outraged by the deaths of Palestinian women in Gaza, they were all but silent about the atrocities committed against Jewish women in Israel, as if one group of women was more important than the other.
Since then, Jewish women here have seen their world transformed by anti-Semitism. They have watched their friendships crumble, their children harassed, their work evaporate, and the inclusive Australia they once knew become a distant memory.
But, as co-editor Tamar Paluch puts it, Jews love to write and, for many women, writing about their experiences became a form of healing.
The result is a stunning new book, Ruptured, which consists of short essays by 36 Jewish women across all walks of Australian life about their reflections of life in Australia post-October 7.
It is difficult reading at times, jaw-dropping at others, as Jewish artists, lawyers, educators, musicians, Olympians, rabbis and professors chronicle how their lives have been impacted by the scourge of anti-Semitism.
Contributors include prominent Jewish voices such as Deborah Conway, Kylie Moore-Gilbert, Ramona Koval, Kerri Sackville, Dani Valent and Kim Rubenstein.
“The book came from a dark place, which was the silence of women’s organisations in response to the sexual crimes of October 7. But what emerged was women wanting to have a voice and to reclaim the voices,” says Paluch. “And we wanted people to understand what it was that we were experiencing.”
In it, Paluch writes about how she has changed her parenting of her young daughter, taking her out of non-Jewish school camps for fear of harassment, scanning public spaces and train stations for potential anti-Jewish hostility.
“I navigate public spaces with primitive hyper-vigilance now, especially when my daughters are around me … who are these people around us, friends, foes, fence-sitters?” she writes.
Co-editor Lee Kofman says Ruptured is a book “written against silence”, including the silence of many of her non-Jewish friends about what happened on October 7 and subsequently.
“With my non-Jewish friends there now seems to be a glass barrier between us in that I feel that they just don’t really get what it’s like to be a Jew right now. They feel for me, but they don’t really get it and I don’t blame them, because unless you are in this place, it’s very hard to understand how tough it is.”
Kofman, a Russian Israeli, has been in Australia for 26 years, but she says the only discrimination she has experienced has been for being Jewish, not Russian.
“I have never in 26 years experienced discrimination because I come from the land of Putin or because of the war between Russia and Ukraine. But since October 7, the discrimination against me and other Jewish people because of the war in Israel, has been horrendous,” she says.
As Kofman and Paluch say in the introduction to the book, “our hope is that these essays can help us repair the rupture between our communities and the world by offering opportunities to hear and understand Jewish experiences”.
They say the Jewish experience in Australia since October 7 highlights something universal – “the dangers of misrepresentation and marginalisation of minority groups, and the corroding effect this can have on individuals, communities and multicultural societies”.
By offering essays explaining the experience of Jewish women in these extraordinary times, they want all Australians to know that “we are still here – wounded, but mostly intact”.
++++++
PM asks Red Cross for hostage help
Israeli ex-security chiefs urge Trump to help end Gaza war
The Australian | Herve Bar | 5 August 2025
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross on Sunday for help aiding emaciated hostages in Gaza, as outrage built at videos.
The premier’s office said he spoke to the ICRC co-ordinator for the region, Julien Lerisson, and “requested his involvement in providing food to our hostages and … immediate medical treatment”.
The ICRC said in a statement it was “appalled by the harrowing videos” and reiterated its “call to be granted access to the hostages”.
In response, Hamas’s armed wing said it would allow the agency access to the hostages but only if “humanitarian corridors” for food and aid were opened “across all areas of the Gaza Strip”.
The Al-Qassam Brigades said it did “not intentionally starve” the hostages, but they would not receive any special food privileges “amid the crime of starvation and siege” in Gaza.
It came as more than 600 retired Israeli security officials, including former heads of intelligence agencies, urged US President Donald Trump to pressure their own government to end the war in Gaza.
“It is our professional judgment that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel,” they wrote in a letter shared with the media on Monday, calling on Mr Trump to “steer” Mr Netanyahu’s decisions.
Over recent days, Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have released three videos showing two hostages seized during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing war.
The images of Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David, both of whom appeared weak and malnourished, have fuelled calls in Israel for a truce and hostage release deal.
A statement from Mr Netanyahu’s office on Saturday said he had spoken with the families of the two hostages and “expressed profound shock over the materials distributed by the terror organisations”.
Mr Netanyahu “told the families that the efforts to return all our hostages are ongoing”, it added.
Mr Netanyahu compared Hamas with the Nazis and accused it of trying to “break us”. He said in a televised address Hamas was spreading “false horror propaganda around the world”.
The footage of Mr Braslavski, who is being held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was released by his family on Sunday (local time). It shows the distraught hostage lying on the floor in tears, as he says he is “on the verge of death”.
“I’ve run out of food and water. They would give me a little bit of food, but today nothing at all,” he says. “Only three pieces of falafel. That’s what I ate today. I can’t stand and I can’t walk to the bathroom. Yesterday I barely ate a plate of rice. I can’t sleep and I can’t live. I am on the verge of death.”
Following the footage release, Mr Netanyahu said: “They don’t want a deal. They want to break us through these horrific videos, through the false horror propaganda it spreads around the world. But we will not break.
“I am filled with even stronger determination to free our kidnapped sons, to eliminate Hamas, and to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to the State of Israel.”
Netanyahu said: “You see them languishing in a dungeon, but the Hamas monsters surrounding them have thick, fleshy arms. They have everything they need to eat. They are starving them, just as the Nazis starved the Jews.”
“Fleshy arms” appears to be in reference to a segment from the video showing Mr David, who appeared to be digging his own grave, in which a Hamas militant’s arm can be seen as he hands a can of beans to the skeletal hostage, who says to the camera that this will have to last him for two days.
Earlier in the day, tens of thousands of people rallied in Tel Aviv to call on Netanyahu’s government to secure the release of the remaining captives.
There was particular outrage in Israel over images of Mr David, who appeared to be digging what he said in the video was his grave.
The videos reference the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where UN-mandated experts warned a “famine is unfolding”.
An emergency session on the “dire situation of the hostages” will be convened by the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Israel’s UN ambassador tweeted on Sunday.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the images “are appalling and expose the barbarity of Hamas”, calling for the release of “all hostages … immediately and unconditionally”.
She said “Hamas must disarm and end its rule in Gaza” – demands endorsed by Arab countries, including Qatar and Egypt. She added that “large-scale humanitarian aid must be allowed to reach those in need”.
Israel has heavily restricted the entry of aid into Gaza, while UN agencies, humanitarian groups and analysts say that much of what Israel does allow in is looted or diverted in chaotic circumstances.
Many desperate Palestinians are left to risk their lives seeking what aid is distributed.
On Sunday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed nine Palestinians waiting to collect food rations from a site operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) near Rafah.
“The soldiers opened fire on people. I was there. No one posed any threat,” 31-year-old witness Jabr al-Shaer told AFP by phone.
Five more people were killed near a different GHF aid site in central Gaza on Sunday, while Israeli attacks elsewhere killed another five people, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.
Mr Braslavski and Mr David are among 49 hostages taken during Hamas’s 2023 attack who are being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Most of the 251 hostages seized in the attack were released.
Meanwhile, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said one of its staff members was killed in an Israeli attack on its Khan Yunis headquarters, in southern Gaza.
++++++
Minister prays at flashpoint holy site
The Australian / AP | Wafaa Shurafa & Sam Metz | 5 August 2025
A far-right Israeli minister visited and prayed at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site on Sunday, triggering regional condemnation and fears that the provocative move could further escalate tensions.
The visit came as hospitals in Gaza said 33 more Palestinians seeking food aid were killed by Israeli fire.
With Israel facing global criticism over famine-like conditions in the besieged strip, Itamar Ben-Gvir’s visit to the hillside compound threatened to further set back efforts by international mediators to halt Israel’s nearly two-year military offensive in Gaza.
The area, which Jews call the Temple Mount, is the holiest site in Judaism and was home to the ancient biblical temples. Muslims call the site the Noble Sanctuary. Today it is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. Visits to the site by Israeli officials are considered a provocation across the Muslim world and openly praying violates a longstanding status quo.
Jews have been allowed to tour it but are barred from praying, with Israeli police and troops providing security. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said after Mr Ben-Gvir’s visit that Israel would not change the norms governing the site.
Mr Ben-Gvir visited following Hamas’ release of videos showing two emaciated Israeli hostages. The videos caused an uproar in Israel and raised pressure on the government to reach a deal to bring home the remaining 50 hostages who were captured on October 7, 2023, in the Hamas-led attack that triggered the war.
Mr Ben-Gvir called for Israel to annex the Gaza Strip and encourage Palestinians to leave, reviving rhetoric that has complicated negotiations to end the war. He raged against a video that Hamas released on Saturday of 24-year-old hostage Evyatar David showing him emaciated in a dimly lit Gaza tunnel, and called it an attempt to pressure Israel.
Mr Ben-Gvir’s previous visits to the site have prompted threats from Palestinian militant groups. Clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian demonstrators in and around the site fuelled an 11-day war with Hamas in 2021.
Sunday’s visit was swiftly condemned as an incitement by Palestinian leaders, as well as Jordan, the Al-Aqsa Mosque’s custodian, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Houthi rebels in Yemen said they fired three drones at Israel; Israel’s military said a “suspicious aerial target launched from Yemen” was intercepted.
The videos – released by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the second-largest militant group in Gaza – triggered outrage across the political spectrum after the hostages described grim conditions and a lack of food. Tens of thousands rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday, calling on Israel and the United States to pursue the hostages’ release. “In this new video, his eyes are extinguished. He is helpless, and so am I,” Tami Braslavski, the mother of one of the hostages, Rom Braslavski, said in a statement.
++++++
Iconic bridge a backdrop for messages of hatred, division
The Australian | Letters | 5 August 2025
The so-called march for humanity in Sydney was billed as a march against war. In reality it was an anti-Israel rally filled with hostile rhetoric, much of it overtly anti- Semitic (“‘Bridge to peace’ march marred by hate signs and Hamas horror”, 4/8).
Many marchers wore provocative clothing, masks and symbols from unrelated political causes.
This was supposedly an Australian protest, yet I saw no Australian flags.
Television interviews, including on foreign networks, featured almost entirely people of foreign descent.
Our streets have been handed over to a mix of genuine pro-Palestinian supporters and political agitators. Criticism of Israel is one thing, but this was not debate – it was hate.
Our iconic Harbour Bridge is now an unwilling backdrop for messages of division.
We should have acted when the Sydney Opera House was misused more than a year ago.
That display was anti-Semitic then, and the message has grown only louder. By failing to act, we opened the door to hatred. On Sunday, that door was kicked down. What’s next? Cry for our beautiful country.
David Wolpert, Randwick, NSW
The marches protesting against the dire situation in the war in Gaza may display the concerns of many Australians, but they are also indicative of the inability of many people to read history or distinguish facts from deception.
As Israel proceeds in its objective of eradicating Hamas, the terrorist organisation both distorts the actual distribution of aid and increases its political demands.
Hamas is now nominating Jerusalem as the future capital of the mooted Palestinian state. This will never be conceded by Israel. The West should pay heed to the developing frustration of Middle Eastern states with the outrageous claims of Hamas. When Qatar actually joins others in disassociating from Hamas, the protesters in the West should pay attention.
Vicki Sanderson, Cremorne, NSW
I would never criticise anybody who is genuinely motivated by compassion and concern for the suffering of people caught up in conflicts in other parts of the world. I only wonder why such compassion and concern can be so selectively applied. Hours before the Sydney Harbour Bridge “march for humanity” took place on Sunday, Hamas released images of a young Israeli hostage, Evyatar David, held in one of its tunnels. He showed obvious signs of being emaciated through starvation and was made by his captors to go through the motions of digging his own grave. It reminded me of World War II images of the walking skeletons of Australian POWs in Changi prison and among the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps.
Yet among the banners and placards displayed on the Harbour Bridge protesting against the appalling suffering in Gaza, not a single one called for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages whose capture by Hamas on October 7, 2023, sparked the current war in Gaza. It seems that even people who pride themselves on their compassion can be remarkably callous.
Peter Wertheim, co-CEO, Executive Council of Australian Jewry
I believe we have a serious problem in Australia where crowds loudly chanted of genocide, for an intifada, for freedom for Palestine, death to the IDF and “From the river to the sea”.
Many Palestinian and Hamas flags and large posters of the Iranian dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were paraded.
Where was an Australian flag among the crowds with calls to rebuild a cohesive, peaceful and humane society? Very worrying for our future.
Kathy Sharp, Neutral Bay, NSW
If the protesters who closed bridges in Sydney and Melbourne were really pro-Palestinian, as they claim, they would be calling for Hamas to surrender, release the hostages, lay down its weapons and end the war.
Hamas has oppressed the people of Gaza since it took over rule there in 2007. It limits their rights, steals their aid, steals building materials to construct terror tunnels, kills dissidents and has started numerous wars. Gaza can be rebuilt only with Hamas gone.
If the protesters only condemned Israel and not Hamas, they’re not pro-Palestinian, they’re just anti-Israel.
Robbie Gore, Brighton East, Vic
++++++
Keep protesting, you pay
Daily Telegraph | Madeleine Bower, James Willis, Lachlan Leeming & William Tyson | 5 August 2025
The NSW Coalition will attempt to tighten the state’s protest laws this week and introduce a user pays system for repeat protesters after more than 90,000 people marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday, rallying against mass starvation in Gaza.
The Harbour Bridge was shut down for more than five hours to allow the march to proceed after police lost their last minute bid in the Supreme Court to prevent the protest going ahead over public safety concerns.
Shadow Attorney-General Alister Henskens will now attempt to pass a private members’ bill through parliament this week which would require both police and the courts to consider public inconvenience, impacts on the economy and the total costs incurred by taxpayers when approving a public demonstration.
The legislation would force a group of protesters to be restricted to three ‘free’ demonstrations anywhere in Sydney per year before they would be required to pay for the use of public resources.
It would also make it illegal for someone attending a protest to disguise their appearance, including by wearing a non-religious face covering.
Mr Henskens told The Daily Telegraph the opposition would be urgently pushing for these law reforms to be debated in parliament this week.
“This isn’t about silencing anyone. It’s about protecting the rights of everyday people to get to work, take their kids to sport, or enjoy a weekend without gridlock,” he said.
Sunday’s peaceful demonstration passed without any arrests or injuries, but required police to intervene halfway through to prevent a potential ‘crowd crush’. Authorities said almost 1100 police were on staff to monitor more than 90,000 protesters – though protesters say the number was 300,000 – at the estimated cost of at least $2 million.
The expenditure included two Polair helicopters costing around $45,000 in fuel and hundreds of highway patrol police pulled away from random breath and drug test duties. Police wages were estimated to be over $2 million to monitor the protest with more than 1000 meals ordered to feed police.
Premier Chris Minns yesterday praised the “peaceful” protesters for following police instructions but said his government was now closely scrutinising Supreme Court Justice Belinda Rigg’s decision to allow the protest.
Mr Minns said he would be looking at whether the judgement set a legal precedent for repeated use of the bridge for future protests warning “it can’t be open season”.
“We can’t shut down the bridge every weekend,” he said.
“We’re not going to have a situation where the anti-vaxxer group has one Saturday and then the weekend after that critical mass takes over, then the weekend after that an environmental cause, then the weekend after that an industrial dispute.”
Should the ruling set a precedent, Mr Minns said he wouldn’t commit to introducing legislation to prevent future protests on the bridge due to a potential High Court challenge.
“The reason we wouldn’t rush to put in legislation is all aspects of public communication, the implied right of freedom of speech in the constitution would be challenged in the high court,” he said.
Opposition leader Mark Speakman also said the use of the bridge to protest “can’t be a precedent”.
“I understand how people can be passionate and very concerned about the starvation and devastation that’s happening in Gaza, but we’ve got to make sure the Harbour Bridge is there for what it’s meant to be, a form of transport,” he said.
The comments come as a number of senior Liberals have questioned why Mr Speakman hadn’t more strongly condemned the use of the bridge before Sunday’s march.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday praised the protesters saying the “important take out” was that the march was “peaceful”.
“It’s a good thing that people peacefully express their views,” he said in Canberra.
“And the march was peaceful and was an opportunity for people to express their concern about what is happening in Gaza.
“It’s not surprising that so many Australians have been affected … want to show their concern (about) people being deprived of food and water and essential services.”
Protest organisers, the Palestine Action Group said while the premier had “predicted chaos”, the march transpired without incident.
“Instead we had what we knew we would, a beautiful outpouring of humanity, marching side-by-side to end genocide and demand our government sanction Israel,” the group said in a statement.
Jewish community leader and CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Alex Ryvchin said the march lent legitimacy to the Palestine Action Group, which he described as “deeply anti-democratic” and “anti-Western”.
Mr Ryvchin said it was “shocking” that high-profile Australians marched behind the group’s banner.
“They’re laughing at us right now. They see this as a huge victory. And sadly, I think lots of Australians willingly helped deliver it.”
++++++
March forces Jewish group to cancel rally
Daily Telegraph | James Willis | 5 August 2025
Safety fears prompted organisers to cancel a regular gathering held in support of Israeli hostages on Sunday, when police were forced to divert resources to the pro-Palestine protest on the Harbour Bridge.
The small gathering, which has been occurring in Sydney roughly once a week, was initially proposed for Circular Quay, with organisers having applied to NSW Police.
“Police warned us they would not be able to provide adequate resources to protect our event, due to the major protest nearby on the Harbour Bridge,” organiser Liron Solomon told The Daily Telegraph.
“Police kept saying ‘we’re not telling you not to do it, but our resources are going to be diverted to the Harbour Bridge.
“They always do their best to help us, but it was a resourcing issue. It’s so unfortunate that our small acknowledgment of the October 7 hostages didn’t occur.”
After advising police they would move the rally from Circular Quay to Bondi Junction, Ms Solomon said her group decided not to proceed because “our safety could not be guaranteed”.
Alexis Aruch, a regular at the demonstration, said it was vital the world’s media did not forget the 50 hostages who had been held by terrorist group Hamas since October 7, 2023.
“Israel will never give up on the hostages. Never,” Ms Aruch said.
“Some of them have been starved and tortured. Others have been killed. This current war was declared by Hamas. That should not be forgotten in some of the propaganda we have seen.”
++++++
‘Let us see hostages’
Daily Telegraph | 5 August 2025
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross for help aiding hostages in Gaza, as outrage built at videos showing two of them emaciated.
The prime minister’s office said he spoke to the ICRC coordinator for the region, Julien Lerisson, and “requested his involvement in providing food to our hostages and … immediate medical treatment”.
The Red Cross said it was “appalled by the harrowing videos” and called for access to the hostages.
In response, Hamas’s armed wing said it would allow the agency access to the hostages but only if humanitarian corridors for food and aid were opened “across all areas of the Gaza Strip” amid claims children were starving in the territory.
The Al-Qassam Brigades said it did “not intentionally starve” the hostages, but they would not receive any special food privileges “amid the crime of starvation and siege” in Gaza.
Over recent days, Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have released three videos showing two hostages seized during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war.
The images of Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David, both of whom appeared weak and malnourished, have fuelled renewed calls in Israel for a truce and hostage release deal.
Of the 251 hostages taken on October 7, Mr Braslavski and Mr David are among the 49 still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
A statement from Mr Netanyahu’s office said he had spoken with the families of the two hostages and “expressed profound shock over the materials distributed by the terror organisations”.
There was outrage in Israel over images of Mr David, who appeared to be digging what he said in the staged video was his own grave.
An emergency session on the “dire situation of the hostages” will be convened by the UN Security Council tomorrow.
In Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir caused outrage when he conducted a Jewish prayer at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third-holiest site, and called for the annexation of Gaza, violating a log-standing agreement.
The site is also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, but they are barred from praying there under the convention.
This was the first time a government minister openly prayed inside the compound.
Jordan, custodian of the site, called Ben-Gvir’s visit “an unacceptable provocation”. Hamas called it “a deepening of the ongoing aggressions against our Palestinian people”, while a spokesperson for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the visit “crossed all red lines”.
++++++
March tactics set to spread
Daily Telegraph | Editorial | 5 August 2025
Participants in and supporters of Sydney’s so-called March for Humanity could speak of little else yesterday.
For them, the march was a moment of glory. They’ll probably be talking about it for months.
Yet all they actually did was walk across a bridge, with the watchful and helpful eyes of police upon them. On the most obvious level, Sunday’s march was a gesture of self-congratulation.
As for its influence, you can bet that no families of those who were slaughtered by Hamas on October 7 are impressed. Nor will be the desperate hostages still held by Hamas in tunnels below the Gaza Strip, some no doubt marked for callous execution.
If Sunday’s event truly was a march for humanity, it should have featured banners calling for the release of those hostages. Instead, it featured at least one portrait of malevolent Iranian dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – a fact airily dismissed by Islamic Labor MP Ed Husic.
“When you have so many people present, you won’t agree with everyone,” Husic said yesterday, as though he was talking about a dud Logies speech.
“I would hate for it to detract from the images of that aerial view of the Harbour Bridge, with so many people on it, that just want the hostilities to end.”
But they don’t want hostilities to end, otherwise they’d be calling for Jewish hostages to be released. What they want is for Israel to be defeated, which is an entirely different thing.
Meanwhile, further indulgent Sydney marches are being planned by activists who are riding high following Sunday’s Ayatollah-inclusive display.
They may be joined by similar events in UK. Britain’s Daily Telegraph yesterday reported that “thousands of pro-Palestinian supporters are planning to flout terror laws in a co-ordinated attempt to overwhelm the police …
“Protests are planned for towns and cities across the UK, but the main event will take place in Westminster.”
A global movement is clearly underway, and it’s all directed against the Jewish people.
We’re right back in the 1930s.
++++++
Lucky end to march
Daily Telegraph | Letters | 5 August 2025
The organisers of Sunday’s walk across the Harbour Bridge can thank their lucky stars it ended without people being harmed or even killed in the inevitable crush.
It can happen. Cast your mind back to the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy in England when 96 Liverpool fans lost their lives in such a crush at an FA Cup semi-final.
The Bridge walk was made against the advice of Premier Minns and the police.
It was not only disruptive but, given the anticipated size of the crowd, dangerous.
Moreover, that it will have made global headlines suggests the Hamas criminals of October 2023 will take succour from the flaying of Israel.
Though Netanyahu does warrant severe censor for overkill in Gaza – for perpetrating damage, injury and loss of life – he was compelled to respond strongly to the murderous Hamas which must be eliminated if the much-vaunted two-state solution to the battered Middle East is ever to be realised.
Ron Sinclair, Windradyne
With Sunday’s protest walk over the Sydney Harbour Bridge over, one has to ask exactly what was achieved besides inconveniencing Sydneysiders, stretching police resources at short notice, costing taxpayers over $1.4m and showing the world that Sydney, or at least 90,000 of its citizens have fallen hook, line and sinker for Hamas’s propaganda (“Shame of Sydney’s useful idiots for Hamas”, DT, 4/8).
It seems that it was a chance to demonise Israel and encourage and embolden Hamas terrorists, who started and are prolonging this war because the gullible West believe the propaganda the terrorist organisation is feeding them.
The protest was called “A March for Humanity”. Where was the march for humanity when 1200 innocent Israelis were raped and killed in the October 7 attacks and where 251 hostages were taken and kept in appalling conditions in Hamas tunnels?
Where is the protest for the emaciated hostage shown digging a grave in a Hamas tunnel?
Where is the protest demanding that Hamas end the war it started by releasing the remaining hostages, dead and alive, giving up its weapons and surrendering its governorship of Gaza?
This protest march achieved little more than making the virtue-signalling protesters feel good about themselves for marching for a cause they cannot change!
Ann Thompson, Coffs Harbour
It is not surprising that there might be 90,000 in a city of 6,000,000 people who desire to see the end of Israel (“Risk of repeated rallies on the bridge”, DT, 4/8).
What is surprising is that we now have a state of governance in NSW where the judiciary usurps all notions of democratic rule in its decision to deny both the legislature and the bureaucracy the ability to run the affairs of the state.
The activist class will be bathing in this new-found paradigm and compiling a list of even more inappropriate venues to express their hate and the bridge precedent will allow it to happen.
Gary Bryant, Gladesville
There is one thing to say to these protesters who are pro-Palestinian (“Almost catastrophic: Chaos at Gaza march”, DT, 4/8).
If you care so much about the people and children in Gaza, your answer is go there and assist these people. Israel did not start this, it began on October 7, 2023 when Hamas kidnapped and slaughtered children.
The picture of Israeli hostage Evyatar David (“‘Despicable’ cruelty to Gaza hostage”, DT, 4/8) highlights that this group of people are still starving hostages in the tunnels.
Hamas must release them now, then and only then will peace in the Middle East have a chance.
Jean Steendam, Sunshine Bay
++++++
Blame the UN for Gaza aid debacle, not Israel
Daily Telegraph (& Courier-Mail) | Arsen Ostrovsky | 5 August 2025
Last week, I travelled to the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the main humanitarian aid gateway from Israel into Gaza. What I saw was not just shocking. It was deeply infuriating and unforgivable.
Hundreds of trucks – at least 600 – packed with flour, bottled water, baby formula, perishables and other food, sat baking in the blistering desert sun. I saw it with my own eyes.
Some had been there for over a month.
Not because of Israel. But because the United Nations, the very body that constantly blames Israel for supposed “starvation” in Gaza, has refused to collect and distribute the aid.
Yes, that’s right. The aid is there. The food is there.
It is ready and waiting.
But it is the UN, and the so-called “humanitarian” agencies, who have utterly abdicated their duty and allowed it to rot.
The UN has offered a litany of excuses for its inaction, citing a variety of security concerns and logistic challenges. But none of these withstand serious scrutiny.
Israel has repeatedly offered co-ordination and cleared the aid. And in far more dangerous war zones, from Syria to Sudan and elsewhere, the UN has never stopped delivering humanitarian supplies.
This is not a question of capacity or safety, but of wilful abandonment and petty politics.
Meanwhile, the international community has relentlessly smeared Israel with grotesque and false accusations of “starving” Palestinians. The hypocrisy is absolutely staggering.
Israel has done more than any nation would be expected to do – or has done – in providing aid to an enemy entity, while still in the course of war, and with 50 hostages remaining captive.
Almost two million tonnes of aid have entered Gaza since Hamas initiated the October 7 attacks.
And yet, the narrative and plethora of accusations against Israel, including in Australia, remains warped beyond recognition. Why? Because acknowledging the truth would mean admitting that it is Hamas that has been systematically stealing the aid, taxing it, and using hunger as a weapon of war against their own people.
It would also mean admitting that Israel has done far more to alleviate the Hamas-caused humanitarian suffering in Gaza than the UN.
And it would mean confronting their own moral failure.
Standing at the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom, surrounded by mountains of aid left idle, the contrast could not be clearer.
While Israel was facilitating aid, the UN had effectively abandoned the children and people of Gaza.
Where is the outrage?
Where are all the human rights champions, the activists and NGOs who scream “famine” and “starvation”, while blindly condemning Israel? Why are they not demanding the UN do its job, collect the aid and distribute to those who need it so urgently?
The truth is, too many in the international community would rather weaponise hunger to vilify Israel than take real steps to help Gazans.
It’s about keeping Israel as the forever scapegoat and undermining the US-led Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a game changer, which has at last bypassed Hamas, to deliver aid directly to the people of Gaza.
This isn’t just negligence. It’s moral bankruptcy. And it’s putting Palestinian lives, including children, at dire risk. It is simply unforgivable, that baby formula is going to waste, while the UN is engaging in petty politics.
If the world truly wants to help the people of Gaza, then stop lying about Israel. Stop peddling Hamas propaganda. And start holding the real culprits, Hamas and the UN, accountable.
But as long as the world continues to defame Israel, the one party actually trying to help, with baseless accusations of starvation, while enabling those who weaponise suffering, then the people of Gaza will continue to pay the price, not because of Israeli policy, but because of international cowardice.
I went to Kerem Shalom to see the truth for myself.
Now it’s time the world does the same.
Arsen Ostrovsky is an Israeli-Australian human rights lawyer and CEO of The International Legal Forum.
++++++
No free ride for unlimited protests
Daily Telegraph | Alister Henskens | 5 August 2025
I am a staunch defender of free speech. It’s a fundamental right in our democracy, and I’ve spoken about its importance many times in and out of parliament. But let’s be clear: free speech is not the same as free rein to shut down our city every weekend.
Sunday’s protest on the Sydney Harbour Bridge was a tipping point. It wasn’t just another demonstration but a takeover of one of our most critical pieces of public infrastructure. And it raises a serious question: if one group can do it, why can’t every other cause do the same?
Let’s not pretend these protesters are being silenced. High-profile figures like Craig Foster have had no trouble getting their message out. They’re on TV, radio and social media. So why do protesters need to block roads, disrupt families, and cost taxpayers millions of dollars?
Premier Chris Minns has completely lost control of this state. He said he opposed the protest, but his own ministers and MPs have defied him. That’s not leadership, it’s chaos.
Last year, Minns himself admitted that weekend protests had already cost taxpayers more than $5m annually in police overtime. That’s taxpayer money that could have gone to hospital beds, school resources, or fixing our broken child protection system. Instead, it’s being spent so the same group can chant the same slogans in the same places week after week.
Earlier this year, I introduced amendments to government legislation that would have brought some common sense back into the law. My proposals would have required courts to consider the cost, disruption, frequency, economic impact, and other less disruptive routes of protests before approving them. Protesters would get three free events a year. After that, they’d have to pay for the police resources they use.
We’d ban non-religious face coverings by protesters that can be used during a march as well.
The Minns government blocked those changes. But this week, the Liberal and Nationals will give them another chance in parliament to get it right.
This isn’t about silencing anyone. It’s about fairness. Premier Minns has a choice: stand with the people of NSW or continue letting protesters hold the city to ransom.
Alister Henskens is NSW Shadow Attorney-General
++++++
Send protesters to Gaza
Herald-Sun | Letters | 5 August 2025
We have witnessed thousands of “Free Palestine” protesters causing disruption and inconvenience in Melbourne and Sydney (“Standoff at bridge as cops block marchers”, HS, 4/8).
It would be interesting to know how many of the culturally appropriating, keffiyeh-wearing participants, had really investigated the allegations against Israel that they were protesting about.
Or had they blindly accepted the Hamas propaganda that has been disseminated? Rather than continuing to inconvenience the populace of Melbourne and Sydney, perhaps these protesters could inconvenience themselves by being parachuted into Gaza with the next airlifted humanitarian aid drop to see for themselves what is really happening.
Ian Jones, Beaconsfield Upper
Activists’ tunnel vision
The pro-Palestine activists have again disrupted people’s lives on a Sunday (“Standoff at bridge as cops block marchers”, HS, 4/8).
Do they ever give a thought to the 1200 people tortured, mutilated and murdered by Hamas (who are Palestinian by the way) in 2023? Perhaps the activists can ignore that terrible rampage because it was in the past, but what about the hostages who are still held captive by Hamas and who knows how badly these terrorists are treating them? By the way, Russia is raging a war against Ukraine.
Where are the activists marching against this murderous invasion?
Barbara Stewart, Beaumaris
Don’t abuse police
Police just doing their job, forming a barrier at the pro-Palestine protest, should not have to contend with aggressive people shouting into their faces (“Standoff at bridge as cops block marchers”, HS, 4/8).
They are simply carrying out a job that the majority of Victorians support, preventing these agitators from causing further disruption.
Suzanne Muller, Kangaroo Flat
Roads not for marches No reasonable human would not be touched by the situation in Gaza and wish for life to be better for those affected by food and accommodation shortages.
However, if a few mates and I blocked a major thoroughfare we could reasonably expect Victoria Police to move us on, regardless of our cause.
Roads, as poor as they are, exist for wheeled vehicles, many attending emergencies to care for us, vehicles delivering goods we rely on to live, or just as a means for travelling.
Why not allow these demonstrators, with an admirable cause, to walk around the boundary at the MCG in front of people many of whom will support their aims, unlike busy motorists who are denied their reasonable expectation to drive where they wish while still concerned about this human tragedy? Alienating motorists and doing damage to Victoria’s economy through the cost of policing this activity will not change the problems in Gaza.
Peter Martin, Wangaratta
++++++
Propaganda war
Courier-Mail | Letters | 5 August 2025
The huge turnout of pro-Palestine supporters on the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday (C-M, 4/8) points to the efficacy of one of the most successful propaganda campaigns in history on behalf of Hamas.
No images can be more distressing to the average citizen than the sight of an emaciated child gasping for breath in the last moments of life.
This lamentable but preventable situation is the product of a carefully constructed plan to win the hearts and minds of sympathetic western populations known for their susceptibility to warm and fuzzy appeals to humanitarianism.
Of course western governments influenced by the sight of thousands of their voters supporting this cause are being sucked in as well.
The hapless Israelis have unfortunately been manipulated into a supporting role in this continuously unravelling propaganda victory.
So it is about time that western governments and the pliable international media be reminded of the cause of this carefully manufactured humanitarian disaster – the initial kidnapping, murder and abuse that was visited on an Israeli population by a group of murderous thugs.
Rather than reward Hamas, western governments should be pushing for the only sensible solution to the Middle Eastern turmoil.
That is the surrender and laying down of arms by Hamas and their renunciation of any further involvement in Palestinian political affairs so consideration can be given for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Geoff Roberts, Bethania
Regarding the closure of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, or in fact any of the major arterial bridges, for rallies, there are ample parks where peaceful protests can be held without major disruption to traffic.
Motorists pay for registration to be able to use these roads, not to have to endure major inconvenience for something that is nothing to do with us here in Australia.
Catherine Millane, Bargara
Balanced view needed
Columnist Andrew Bolt criticised the judge for approving the disruptive Sydney Harbour Bridge march (C-M, 4/8), but better the safety valve of peaceful protest than suppression of strong opinion that risks violent riots.
Palestinian protesters had a momentary victory, attracting international attention.
Even in today’s mood of mistrust and cynicism of reporting tainted by propaganda, a relentless barrage depicting wounded, starving Gazans understandably stirs strong emotional reactions.
But protesters should inform themselves on the conflict’s history and Hamas, the authoritarian regime they purport to support.
Hamas has been criticised for human rights abuses, crackdowns on journalists and dissent against its rule.
This political organisation has a military wing and links to enemies of Israel.
Compromise and a two-state solution seems impossible when its charter commits to Israel’s destruction.
The ghastly plight of Israeli hostages and their families is largely out of sight and ignored.
Hamas’s aims will be encouraged by Australian support.
There is political benefit for Palestinian sympathisers here while Israeli supporters are alienated and sidelined.
It’s an unfortunate human trait to poke our noses into the business of others.
While the extent of the humanitarian disaster that is Gaza begs international interference, a balanced view of the conflict must be maintained.
Ros Smith, Middle Park
++++++
Enough is enough
Hobart Mercury | Letters | 5 August 2025
Yes, yes, anti-Semitism is an evil and must be eradicated.
It has no place in a civil society. But at the same time, it is not any greater evil than any other prejudice that besmirches our society.
For Jillian Segal to elevate anti-Semitism above all other evils like racism, Islamophobia and other forms of discrimination, which only those who have experienced it can comprehend its widespread harm, is unbecoming. It is unbecoming to associate anti-Semitism with criticism of the genocide perpetrated by the Netanyahu government.
What is incomprehensible to most people, knowing what the Jewish population experienced during the Holocaust and before and beyond, is a Jewish government can be responsible for what we are witnessing in Gaza.
There comes a time, there is a place and there are people who will, when what is unacceptable in civilised society, call out and demand a stop.
We are those people, this is the time and this is the place to say enough is enough.
Jon Jovanovic, Lenah Valley