Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin - Leader of the Greens) -Â Mr Speaker, I want to speak tonight about what is happening in Israel and Gaza. The scale of the barbarism that we are seeing unfold in the media horrifies and terrifies us all. Tonight our thoughts are with the Israelis suffering unspeakable anguish. They have watched the footage of people they love - babies, teenagers, parents - murdered on livestream with glee. Horrifying acts of organised brutality with the very young and the very old dragged away to a frightening fate as hostages.
Israelis live with the pain of wondering what will be done to them. Tonight our thoughts are with innocent Palestinians in shock and living their own nightmare as the full force of the Israeli military is directed at the civilian population. People have reported seeing their whole family bombed to death in front of them, fleeing from block to block only to find relentless indiscriminate bombing wherever they turn. Apartment complexes in Gaza City have been purposely targeted and flattened, everyone inside dead.
The pain of an Israeli parent is no different from the anguish of a Palestinian mother or father. The majority of all deaths so far have been among innocent civilians. Hamas' shocking summary killings and abductions of Israelis displayed a chilling disregard for life and international law. These deliberate acts were war crimes and have no justification. In Gaza, where close to half of the population are under the age of 18, the rising death toll there today poses a new war crime being committed by Israel. Gazan children have already been living under an illegal blockade for 16 years.
Through our alliance with the United States, Australia has taken sides with Israel and refused to speak against the ongoing murder of children. According to human rights groups, some 2300 of them have been killed in the last 16 years. In 2014 it was over 500. Throughout all this, Australia has looked away and stayed silent. Gaza has become a ringed compound where people are starved of the basics of life and consigned to live like caged animals.
Unemployment and poverty rates are around 50 per cent. Last year, the Save the Children charity found four out of five Gazan children live in a perpetual state of depression, sadness, grief and fear, unable to sleep or concentrate, waiting for the next round of violence to erupt. More than half of Gaza's children have contemplated suicide. Three out of five are regularly self-harming. They have been exposed to the sounds and sights of war around the clock. These are the conditions that have shaped the lives of young people in Gaza for two decades and it is not surprising that Hamas extremism has flourished under those conditions. That is not a justification. It is just an ugly truth that Israel has fostered these extremists by starving them from birth of any hope, dignity or future.
We are seeing the horrifying violent consequences of our decades-long failure to speak up against abuse playing out before us. We shoulder some responsibility for picking sides and we are still doing it. Australia has appropriately condemned the war crimes of Hamas but we have not condemned the crimes of war being practiced by Israel against civilians in the bombing of Gaza. The Greens disagree with Penny Wong's deliberate equivocation when she says it is not difficult to judge from far away. Labor has been disgustingly weak on this. We were appropriately quick however to judge Hamas' grotesque actions.
Israel's defence minister has tightened the blockade conditions and cut off all water, food, electricity, fuel and medical supplies to millions of people who live on the tiny strip of Gaza which is approximately the size of Bruny Island. That siege has affectively ensured the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians, half of whom are children. It is a war crime. The Israeli army's current order to people in Gaza City to evacuate to the south of the Gaza Strip including from hospitals is being investigated now by Amnesty International as forced displacement of the civilian population and another violation of international law.
Tonight as we speak, Israel is preparing a ground invasion into the besieged territory while the humanitarian corridor between Gaza and Egypt has been cut off by Israeli forces. Through our complicity and silence, and refusal to stand against the attacks on defence of civilians, we bear some moral responsibility. The Prime Minister has urged Netanyahu to operate within the rules of law, when every single day he shows them that it is not being done.
Our uncritical support for Israel has helped enable the conditions for this explosion of terror and the violent barbarism of Hamas. Tasmanian Jewish people have the right to know their governments Tasmanian and Australian condemn the despicable acts of glorified mass murder, torture and hostage taken against innocent Israeli civilians and Tasmanian Palestinians should know their governments have not turned our back on the rule of international law, that we condemn the horrors of the carpet bombing and siege of Gaza with innocent civilians trapped and massacred on a mass scale and forced to flee to nowhere safe.
The Israeli government's commitment to enact revenge is chilling. It can only lead to an escalation now and the proliferation of fighting. The Greens understand the violence begets more violence. Without addressing the root cause of these cycles of violence including entrenched impunity for war crimes and Israel's system of oppression and dominance of Palestinians, civilians will continue to pay the price.
It is more critical than ever that Australia not remain complicit and not be selective about which crimes of war it denounces. The Greens condemn the actions of Israel and Hamas against defence of civilians and call on our governments to do the same. We stand in support of peace and nonviolence and for the rule of international law to be upheld for all.
