Middle East conflict
Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (10:28): These are the names of nine children Israel killed bombing a residential building in Gaza last week: Eve, Ruslan, Sidra, Luqman, Sayden, Revan, Jubran, Rakan and Yahya. They had been at home when their mum Alaa al-Najjar was working as a paediatrician at a hospital in Khan Yunis. Now nine of her 10 children are dead. I cannot imagine the depths of Alaa’s grief – few of us can – yet 19 months into Israel’s genocide, her trauma is not unique. Israel is still killing dozens of people every single day. Since March Israel has blocked all aid and food from entering Gaza. Children are being starved to death. The UN warned last week that 14,000 babies had just 48 hours to live, unless the blockade was ended. Israel has since let in a small amount of aid but, according to government ministers, only as a control tour to conquer and cleanse Gaza. This is just abhorrent, and yet the Australian government has still not placed sanctions on Israel or stopped sending weapons parts to Israel. I ask everyone in the Labor government: what will it take to put sanctions on this Israeli government? If bombing tens of thousands of children to death is not enough, if deliberate starvation of a whole people is not enough, if open plans for ethnic cleansing are not enough for the Labor government to do something more than words, then what the hell is?