Thursday, 29 May 2025

Middle East conflict

Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO (Northern Metropolitan) (21:53): (1687) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Premier, and the action I seek is for her to advocate to her federal colleagues to impose urgent sanctions on Israel. We have all seen the horrors of the genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people, and after more than 11 weeks of a total aid blockade 2.1 million people remain in critical need. Children are starving; families are dying. On 23 May, 198 trucks were finally permitted to enter Gaza carrying wheat flour, medicine and nutrition supplies – barely 20 per cent of the territory’s daily prewar needs. These limited deliveries are often disrupted by looting and security threats. No fuel or hygiene products are being permitted. This is a deliberate engineered humanitarian collapse. The UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator said that without aid 14,000 babies could die. The World Food Programme estimated that 71,000 children under the age of five will be acutely malnourished in coming months. 14,100 cases are expected to be severe.

This week Ward al-Sheikh Khalil, a six-year-old, awoke surrounded by fire and watched her mother, two siblings and 33 others burn to death. In the same week the Premier attended an event toasting the state of Israel, where speakers claimed that ‘there is no genocide in Gaza’. How dystopian and how completely careless to ignore independent human rights bodies – the UN and Amnesty International – who have been explicit in saying that the Israeli government is committing genocide against the Palestinian people during its ongoing invasion and bombing of the Gaza Strip.

It is completely tone-deaf, Premier, to ignore the pleas of thousands of protesters from across Victoria and to ignore the murder of 50,000 little children. Premier, you should be condemning war crimes, not legitimising spaces that deny or minimise the suffering of thousands of Palestinian babies and families. What kind of message does this send to our Palestinian community right here in Victoria? It is inhumane and unconscionable for any government to remain passive while the extermination of a people and culture continues.