Thursday, 28 November 2024

 Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO (Northern Metropolitan) (10:21): I move, by leave:

That this house:

(1)   notes that in a report to the United Nations General Assembly on 20 September 2024, the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, stated that:

(a) civilians have been indiscriminately and disproportionately killed en masse in Gaza;

(b) in five months, the Israel Defense Forces used over 25,000 tonnes of explosives across the Gaza Strip, equivalent to two nuclear bombs;

(c) this bombing has caused mass destruction and the collapse of water and sanitation systems, agricultural devastation, and toxic pollution; 

(d) the policies and practices of Israel are consistent with the characteristics of genocide with the targeting of Palestinians as a group, and the life-threatening conditions imposed on Palestinians through warfare and restrictions on humanitarian aid;

(2)   further notes that the committee stated that:

(a) ‘It is the collective responsibility of every state to stop supporting the assault on Gaza and the apartheid system in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem’;

(b) ‘Upholding international law and ensuring accountability for violations rests squarely on member states’;

(c) ‘A failure to do so weakens the very core of the international legal system and sets a dangerous precedent, allowing atrocities to go unchecked’;

(3)   further notes the Gaza Strip is 360 square kilometres, about half the size of the Northern Metropolitan Region;

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

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

Leave refused.