PM Hits Out at Hamas Carnage

Anthony Albanese has “unequivocally” condemned the Hamas terror attacks on Israelis, as independent senator Lidia Thorpe accused the federal government of siding with an “oppressive occupation”.

On Monday, the Prime Minister led tributes in parliament to victims of the unprecedented attacks, saying Australians had been shocked by their brutality.

“Hamas terrorists committed mass murder on a horrific scale,” he said. “This was no act of war against the army of an enemy, it was the slaughter of innocent people. It was an act of terror.”

Mr Albanese reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself, as Jewish families mourned the greatest loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust.

“Hamas offers nothing but terror and bloodshed with no regard to who pays the price,” he said.

“We should be very clear that it is Hamas that is the enemy, not the Palestinian people.”

Mr Albanese said anti-Semitic comments and Islamophobia in the wake of the attacks had no place in Australia.

“The awful anti-Semitism chanted by some of the protesters at the Sydney Opera House is beyond offensive, it is a betrayal of our Australian values,” he said.

In the upper house, Senator Thorpe wore a keffiyeh – a scarf associated with Palestinian people – and said while she condemned the Hamas attacks, Australia had sided with an “oppressive occupation”.

“The core issue of this conflict is 75 years of violent displacement, time, segregation, humiliation and dehumanisation,” she said. “Palestinians live with a generation of trauma, of oppression and dispossession. They continue to fight for sovereignty, liberation and their land back, as do first peoples of this country.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton told parliament the attack by Hamas was an act of “sheer barbarity”.

“No longer can the apologists of this death cult claim they have a just and noble cause. What happened nine days ago was the embodiment of evil,” he said.