- by Hannah Middleton and Denis Doherty
- The Guardian
- Issue #2079
Photo: Jarrod Moore
The genocide taking place in Gaza has not stopped for over 30 days. The death toll in what the United Nations is calling the “children’s graveyard” has passed 11,000 people, with over 70 per cent of the dead being women and children. There is no sign of this massacre ending. But the Albanese government continues to uphold Israel’s ‘right to self-defence,’ as if this allows Tel Aviv to continue its genocide.
Albanese will go down in history as the prime minister who stayed silent while Israel massacred tens of thousands of Palestinian children and adults. He is heartless and gutless and has made us all complicit in the Gaza slaughterhouse.
In supporting the full-scale massacre of the Palestinian population in Gaza, Albanese has repeatedly spoken of the ‘right to self-defence.’ However this right apparently does not apply to the Palestinian people as they are bombed into oblivion.
Oppressed people will always want to gain their freedom, their safety and their equality. This is the right of the Palestinians.
Supporting genocide is what Albanese is doing when he continues to insist on Israel’s right to defend itself. The Albanese government must support a ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Millions of people in Australia are shocked, horrified and angered by the Labor government’s refusal to join the United Nations in calling for a ceasefire. The government is failing to listen and act. It is on the wrong side of history.
It seems that we are looking at Israel’s own ‘final solution,’ with their collective punishment of a whole civilian population and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
After decades of systematic oppression under the guise of a military occupation, the Israeli policy appears to be nearing its final completion.
One child is being murdered in Gaza every ten minutes and this has been happening since 7 October 2023.
Albanese insists that “we are concerned about humanitarian issues” but where is his public condemnation of the bombing of Gaza City’s Rantisi Children’s Hospital, which contains the only child cancer ward in the whole of Gaza?
Prime Minister, do you know that wild dogs have begun eating the bodies in the streets of Gaza.
It has become impossible to rescue the wounded trapped under rubble. Their cries for help can be heard in many places, adding to the agony of their families. There are also an estimated 2300 dead bodies under the rubble.
Why are you not calling for a ceasefire?
Prime Minister, will you write your name on your arm? That is what Palestinians are doing in Gaza so they can be identified when their dead bodies – or bits of their bodies – are found after Israeli bombing raids.
Prime Minister, did you know that 16 of 34 hospitals in Gaza are no longer operating? Disinfectant materials have largely run out, as has fresh water sufficient for bathing wounds. Surgery on adults and children is being performed without anaesthetic.
Israel ordered the evacuation of 22 hospitals, including those specialising in dialysis patients and premature births. Doctors say this would be impossible because many patients could not travel and there are no alternative equipped hospitals for them to go to.
Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem says Israel does not have the right to bomb hospitals because Hamas fighters are thought to be located in them.
Prime Minister, do you know that Israel’s war of starvation means that not a single one of the 23 bakeries in Gaza, which fed a quarter of a million people each day, is still operating?
Israel has also destroyed Gaza’s fishing fleet in the southern Rafah area, cutting off a source of protein.
How can you continue to support the genocide in Gaza by calling for Israel’s right to defend itself?
Prime Minister, do you know that the people in Gaza have depended on about 100 desalination plants but that this system has now collapsed?
Residents have since been digging wells and drinking contaminated groundwater, or drawing from the aquifer, which was inundated with seawater some years ago.
On 3 November, Israel bombed water reserves in Rafah, the city in southern Gaza which it had instructed Gaza residents to flee to.
As images of children in unimaginable pain appear on our TVs, the Albanese government cannot be forgiven for refusing to demand an end to the horrors unfolding. Appallingly it is also helping to supply the arsenal used to continue the killing.
Australia has approved 322 defence exports to Israel over the past six years. Details on what exactly has been approved have not been made public. It is claimed there is evidence Israel is using goods and technology provided by the Australian government to commit serious abuses of the human rights of the people in Gaza.
A massive outpouring of civil society opposition to the ongoing wholesale slaughter has erupted around Australia. These decent human beings will not forget or forgive Albanese for defending the right of Israel to perpetrate this atrocity.
Gaza has become the Warsaw Ghetto of our time. This shames us all. This should not be tolerated by the Labor Government. Shame, Albo, shame!
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