Wednesday, 27 November 2024

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (09:55): 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 United Nations Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories submitted a report to the General Assembly on 20 September 2024, and this report:

(a) raises serious concerns of breaches of international humanitarian and human rights laws in the occupied Palestinian territory, including starvation as a weapon of war, the possibility of genocide in Gaza and an apartheid system in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; 

(b) documents the impact of the conflict escalation since 7 October 2023 on Palestinians’ rights to food; to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment; to physical integrity, liberty and security of persons; as well as the disproportionate effects on the rights of women, children, and future generations more broadly;

(2)   further notes that the committee condemned the ongoing smear campaign and other attacks against UNRWA and the UN at large, including that the ‘deliberate silencing of reporting, combined with disinformation and attacks on humanitarian workers, is a clear strategy to undermine the vital work of the UN, sever the lifeline of aid still reaching Gaza, and dismantle the international legal order’;

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

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

Leave refused.