Extract from The New Daily
Source: AAP
Australia has pledged an extra $20 million in humanitarian aid for women and children in war-torn Gaza after more than 100,000 people turned out in protest across the country to protest the suffering in the besieged enclave.
The funding will go to organisations able to deliver desperately needed food, medical supplies and other lifesaving support, the federal government said in a statement on Sunday.
The new package of support includes $6 million for the United Nations World Food Program for the provision and distribution of food supplies and $5 million for UNICEF for nutritional support for children at risk of starvation.
The International Committee of the Red Cross will also receive $5 million to help those in Gaza meet essential needs, including access to health care.
An additional $2 million for relief support with the UK will be donated through an existing partnership arrangement, while $2 million will go to the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organisation to provide medical supplies to support the operation of field hospitals in Gaza.
Australia has so far committed $130 million in humanitarian assistance to help civilians in Gaza and Lebanon since October 7, 2023.
But the federal government has been criticised for not doing enough in addressing what the UN has described as worsening famine conditions in Gaza.
About 90,000 people turned the Sydney Harbour Bridge into a sea of Palestinian flags on Sunday while tens of thousands more held similar protest in Melbourne and Adelaide ins support of Gaza.
Protesters walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge in the Palestine Action Group’s March for Humanity. Photo: AAP
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australia has “consistently been part of the international call on Israel to allow a full and immediate resumption of aid to Gaza”.
“The suffering and starvation of civilians in Gaza must end,” she said.
“Australia will continue to work with the international community to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the release of hostages and a two-state solution – the only path to enduring peace and security for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is eying global moves to recognise a Palestinian state after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the UK would do so unless Israel secured a ceasefire and increased humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The UK’s stance comes after France became the first G7 country to say it would recognise Palestine ahead of a UN general assembly meeting in September. It was followed by Canada.
Albanese has said that while the world was horrified at Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which resulted in thousands of deaths and some 200 people being taken hostage, the subsequent war had cost too many innocent lives.
He’s also said it was a matter of “when, not it” Australia would recognise a Palestinian state, under Labor’s policy to back a two-state solution in the Middle East, with the condition that Hamas – which Australia considers a terrorist organisation – steps back from any governing role in the Strip.
Gaza’s health ministry says 60,000 people have been killed during Israel’s counteroffensive.
Israel has restricted food and medical supplies from entering Gaza, where it controls all entry points, to put pressure on Hamas.
International pressure is mounting on the nation state to let in more humanitarian aid, as deaths attributed to malnutrition rise.
Israel denies there is starvation in the besieged strip despite international human rights groups branding Israel’s offensive in Gaza a genocide and attributing deaths to starvation.
Slew of famous faces demonstrate
Julian Assange, Bob Carr, Anthony Mundine and Craig Foster joined Sunday’s march in Sydney for Gaza.
An unprecedented throng of protesters turned the Harbour Bridge into a sea of Palestinian flags and the centrepoint of public resistance to Israel’s military action in Gaza.
Several Labor MPs including former NSW Labor premier and former federal foreign minister Bob Carr joined the march in defiance of Premier Chris Minns alongside multiple Greens and independent colleagues.
The premier previously warned the city would “descend into chaos” if the protest went ahead.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange joined Carr at the rally with the pair seen leading the crowd and clutching a giant “Save Gaza” placard.
Former Socceroos captain Craig Foster and former boxer and rugby league star Anthony Mundine added to the list of prominent attendees.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange led protesters across the Sydney Harbour Bridge
Australians have been watching “an avalanche of atrocities that cannot be denied or erased”, Foster told the crowd.
“As a country we’ve said much but not acted as we must,” he said.
About an hour into the march and with increasing concerns for public safety, police urged protesters on the bridge to turn around “to avoid a crowd crush” and “risk of injury due to the huge number of people taking part”.
The force permitted protesters to return southbound across the bridge to the Sydney CBD after the march was initially proposed to end in North Sydney.
By 5pm, bridge lanes had reopened in both directions.
NSW Police Acting Commissioner Peter McKenna estimated attendance at about 90,000 people and described the crowd as the largest he had seen in Sydney.
“We were really overwhelmed with numbers,” he told reporters on Sunday evening, noting attendees were well behaved and thanking them for complying with police orders.
Acting Assistant Commissioner Adam Johnson described the situation as “perilous” and worried police were going to have a “major incident with potential loss of life”.
“I can honestly say in my 35 years of policing, that was a perilous situation … I’ve never seen a more perilous situation,” he said.
Rally speaker and independent Jewish journalist and author Antony Loewenstein said he saw “no evidence” the huge number of people who attended were in any physical danger due to the crowd’s size.
“Police are trying to create a fiction around an event they maybe weren’t prepared for,” he said.
Federal Opposition Leader Sussan Ley questioned the shutting down of a “critical piece of infrastructure” in Sydney.
“I respect the right of free speech and protest, but this is taking it to another level … the protest could happen elsewhere,” LLey told Sky News.
Labor backbencher Ed Husic, who has been more outspoken on ending the war in Gaza, emphasised unity.
First time protesters and friends Ian Robertson, 74, and Greg Mullins, 66, said they hoped their attendance could make a difference.
“The world’s gone mad,” Mullins told AAP.
“I came today because I don’t want my kids telling me what were you doing when this mass murder and genocide was going on,” Mr Robertson said.
About 25,000 protesters also marched through Melbourne to block a major CBD thoroughfare but were stopped by a wall of riot police at the entrance to the King Street Bridge.
Many in the crowd banged pots and pans in a nod to mounting concerns about mass starvation in Gaza.
More than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza, according to local health authorities, while the United Nations says dozens of people have died in recent weeks due to starvation.
Israel’s military campaign began after militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1200 people and taking more than 251 hostages.
—AAP
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