Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the ecumenical worship service for the opening of the 2026 federal parliamentary year, there was a call for peace throughout the world. Every day, billions of people struggle through life living in extreme poverty, violent conflict, war and oppression, none more so than the Palestinians, who have never known peace in their lifetime and who only know a life of daily survival and misery. With so much else going on in people's lives here in Australia and overseas, and with people tiring of the decades-old Palestine-Israel conflict, the daily sufferings endured by Palestinians hardly rate a mention in mainstream media here in Australia. That has been even more noticeable since the announcement of a ceasefire in October, when, for most outsiders, the conflict was supposedly settled.

Yet the shootings, the bombings, the air strikes and the suffering did not stop with the announced ceasefire. Credible sources report that, since the ceasefire, over 500 Palestinians, including innocent women and children, have been violently killed. The Israeli land grab continues. Journalists are barred from the region in an attempt to prevent the truth from being reported. International aid to desperate and starving Palestinians is restricted by the Israeli military. And even with the recent opening of the Rafah crossing to Egypt, on-the-ground reports claim that very little aid is now getting through.

Aid workers who risked their lives to save people are pleading for international intervention to force the Netanyahu government to ease their restrictions over Palestinian people, and now the Jewish Independent reports that the Israeli Knesset is considering legislation that would make the death sentence mandatory for intentional killing by Palestinians, but not by Israelis.

Since October 2023, around 72,000 Palestinians, including over 20,000 children, 1,700 health workers and 259 journalists and media workers, have been killed; 182,000 people have been wounded; 870,000 have been displaced; and 10,000 Palestinians have been taken prisoner. Whilst some will dispute those statistics, credible reports, including from aid workers and UN observers on the ground, who have addressed MPs in this place, confirm that the situation for Palestinians is horrific and their ongoing oppression and the widespread loss of life is very real. Yet the world turns a blind eye whilst Palestinians lose their lives, their homes, their lands and their rights. Accusations of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide against the Netanyahu government are now regularly raised with me. History will judge this period harshly, but that will be of no use to the desperate Palestinian people, who, right now, are pleading for help as they struggle to survive. For them, peace is an elusive dream.