Australia pledges more aid after mass protest
Australia has pledged millions of dollars in humanitarian aid after thousands flocked to protests across the country.
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 protests across the country.
The money will go to organisations able to deliver desperately needed food, medical supplies and other lifesaving support, the federal government said on Sunday.
The package includes $6 million for the United Nations World Food Program to provide and distribute 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 get $5 million to help those in Gaza meet essential needs, including access to health care.
An additional $2 million for relief support with Britain 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 committed $130 million in humanitarian assistance to help civilians in Gaza and Lebanon since October 7, 2023.
But the Albanese government has been criticised for not doing enough in challenging 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 were at similar protests in Melbourne and Adelaide in support of Gaza.
Pro-Palestine protesters on Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday. Photo: AAP
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australia had “consistently been part of the international call on Israel to allow a full and immediate resumption of aid to Gaza”.
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“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.
Britain’s stance came 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 while the world was horrified by 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. Labor policy is to back a two-state solution in the Middle East, but Hamas – a designated terror group in Australia – must step back from any governing role in the Gaza 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 it 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 its 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 NSW Premier Chris Minns, alongside multiple Greens and independent colleagues.
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Minns had warned that Sydney would “descend into chaos” if the protest went ahead.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange joined Carr at the rally; the pair were seen leading the crowd and clutching a giant “Save Gaza” banner.
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 in Sydney. Photo: AAP
Australians had watched “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.
NSW Police Acting Commissioner Peter McKenna estimated attendance at 90,000 people and described the crowd as the largest he had seen in Sydney.
“We were really overwhelmed with numbers,” he said on Sunday night, 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 was in any physical danger because 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 shutting down 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,” Ley told Sky News.
Labor backbencher Ed Husic, who has been 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 said.
“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,” Robertson said.
About 25,000 protesters also marched through Melbourne to block a major CBD thoroughfare. They were halted 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.
