Thursday, 31 October 2024

 Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (09:56): I move, by leave:

That this house:

(1)   notes that since the Legislative Council’s resolution on 17 October 2023 concerning Israel and Gaza, which stated that this house ‘stands with Israel’, the following have occurred:

(a) on 27 September 2024 the Secretary-General of the United Nations addressed the UN Security Council and stated that over the past year virtually the entire population of Gaza has been displaced, many of them several times, with nowhere safe to go, that half of the homeless are children and that all are surviving in appalling conditions with very limited access to food, water, sanitation, shelter and health care;

(b) instead of scaling up humanitarian operations there has been a scaling up of attacks and harassment against humanitarian personnel;

(c) on 28 August 2024 Israeli forces opened fire on a clearly marked United Nations World Food Programme armoured vehicle that was part of a convoy that had been coordinated with Israeli military authorities, and 10 bullets hit the windows of the vehicle;

(d) on 9 September 2024 UN convoy that had been fully coordinated with Israeli forces was stopped at al-Rashid checkpoint on its way to support the polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza. Soldiers pointed their weapons directly at the convoy personnel. The clearly marked UN vehicles were encircled by Israeli forces, and live shots were fired. The convoy was approached by two Israeli tanks and a bulldozer, and a tank rammed the UN vehicles from the back, compacting the convoy with 12 humanitarian workers inside;

(2)   does not support the state of Israel’s continued invasion of Gaza; and

(3)   supports calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.

Leave refused.