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PM addresses parliament on Israel-Gaza conflict
By Adam Carey
Anthony Albanese has called on Hamas to unconditionally release all Israeli hostages and condemned its surprise attack on Israel as “mass murder on a horrific scale” in an address to the House of Representatives on Monday morning.
Albanese also condemned “the awful antisemitism” of some protesters who gathered outside the Sydney Opera House, describing their chants as “a betrayal of our Australian values”.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks on Hamas’ attacks on Israel and ongoing conflict, in the House of Representatives at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“The evil committed by Hamas in Israel has chilled every Australian heart,” the prime minister said. “We’ve all been profoundly shocked by the scale and wantonness of these attacks.”
The atrocity affects what happens to both Israelis and Palestinians from now, he said.
“We must face what has happened and what is now unfolding with complete moral clarity. Hamas terrorists committed mass murder on a horrific scale. Jewish families here and across the world are mourning the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.
“This was no act of war against the army of an enemy. It was a slaughter of innocent people. It was an act of terror, calculated, pitiless brutality compounded by a rain of rockets designed to kill and to terrify without mercy and without discrimination,” Albanese said.
“We have learned of acts of violation and humiliation so grotesque they should be beyond imagination, but have been made reality by Hamas.
“They targeted young people at a music festival and hunted them down. They preyed on families, on children, on parents trying to protect their babies in what often proved to be their desperate final act.
“And Hamas celebrated. They wanted the world to see.”
12.45pm
Possible last flight from Israel
Two RAAF planes and one privately contracted flight left Tel Aviv on Sunday with about 250 Australians.
About 1200 Australians and their families have been able to leave Israel.
Another flight is being organised for Monday and could be the last for the foreseeable future as the security situation rapidly changes.
A previous Fijian repatriation flight evacuated 14 Australians.
AAP
12.29pm
Hospital supplies are running low
By Laura Chung
Hospitals in Gaza are running low on water, medicine and fuel, humanitarian officials have said.
Speaking to CNN, Palestinian Red Crescent Director General Marwan Jilani said hospitals in the coastal enclave have only enough fuel for Monday, and perhaps Tuesday.
But they will be unable to operate without fuel, he said.
Hospitals are also running low on food, water and medicine.
Jilani called for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza from the Rafah crossing.
Egyptian authorities continue negotiations with Israel, the US and Palestinian militant groups over allowing aid to flow into the besieged strip and foreigners and wounded Palestinians cross into Egypt.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the agency had aid available that could be dispatched within hours, as long as it was safe to do so.
12.15pm
Condemn Iran for its support of Hamas: Scott Morrison
By Laura Chung
Former prime minister and federal member for Cook Scott Morrison has called on Iran to stop funding Hamas.
“We cannot look away from the support Hamas has received from Iran; they are the funders of this terrible violence,” Morrison said in parliament.
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He added that Hamas should forever be condemned as a terrorist organisation, both in Australia and in the international community.
“We will support Israel to [its right of] self-defence, in taking action to respond to terror attacks,” Morrison said. “Let our resolve not diminish, let our eyes not turn away, from what we say today as we continue to support the state of Israel to defend itself.”
Hamas is a Palestinian Islamist militant group dedicated to the creation of an independent Palestinian state. The group operates from and controls the Gaza Strip.
It has been declared a terrorist organisation by Australia since 2001, the United States and the European Union for its long-running armed resistance against Israel, for which it receives financial and material backing from Iran.
Hamas is part of a regional alliance made up of Iran, Syria and the Shiite Islamist group Hezbollah in Lebanon. All broadly oppose US policy in the Middle East and Israel.
Morrison added that through his long association with the Jewish community, he had learnt they were a people of hope.
“Even in the most awful circumstances in this past week,” he said, “the people of Israel live on.”
11.36am
‘The words should never have been said’: Peter Dutton
By Natassia Chrysanthos
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has appeared to accuse Labor of condoning antisemitic slogans chanted by protesters at the Sydney Opera House last week.
While giving a speech in parliament condemning the Hamas attacks on Israel and subsequent rallies, Dutton said that protesters in Sydney fired flares, burnt an Israeli flag, and shouted words “we should never hear in our country or anywhere else in the world”.
He quoted three antisemitic slogans chanted by a small group of protesters – which the Herald and The Age have chosen not to repeat – which was met by an interjection from an MP on the other side of the House.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in parliament on Monday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
It is not clear which MP raised the interjection.
In fiery comments that followed, Dutton said he would not stop saying those words.
“I won’t stop saying [it] because it should be condemned. The words should never have been said in the first place. And shame on you. Shame on you for condoning those words, or suggesting that those words shouldn’t be condemned in this place,” he said, to an uproar from the other side of the House.
“I won’t stop saying them, I won’t stop saying them. And the Jewish community here in Australia deserves to hear you condemn them as well.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the chants just 10 minutes before, as he had on several prior occasions.
“The awful antisemitism chanted by some of the protesters at the Sydney Opera House is beyond offensive,” Albanese said in his own remarks, which were made directly before Dutton’s speech.
“It is a betrayal of our Australian values. We reject it. And we condemn it. Our country is better than that. And our country is a better place because of our Jewish community.”
11.21am
‘Betrayal of Australian values’: Albanese
By Adam Carey
In his parliamentary address, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went on to condemn protesters who engaged in antisemitic chants outside the Sydney Opera House last week.
“The awful antisemitism chanted by some of the protesters at the Sydney Opera House is beyond offensive, it is a betrayal of our Australian values. We reject it – and we condemn it,” he said.
“Our country is better than that – and our country is a better place because of our Jewish community.”
Hamas seeks to fan the embers of antisemitism and this will not be allowed in Australia, he said.
“Just as we join in this place to condemn Hamas, the message we should be sending loudly and clearly from this place to all Australians is to avoid the traps set by such forces of division.
“Anyone seeking to exploit a people’s suffering for political purposes should consider the damage they risk doing.
“Anyone tempted by the lazy but corrosive option of false equivalence should shun that temptation. This is a time for compassion, not cynicism.”
10.49am
PM addresses parliament on Israel-Gaza conflict
By Adam Carey
Anthony Albanese has called on Hamas to unconditionally release all Israeli hostages and condemned its surprise attack on Israel as “mass murder on a horrific scale” in an address to the House of Representatives on Monday morning.
Albanese also condemned “the awful antisemitism” of some protesters who gathered outside the Sydney Opera House, describing their chants as “a betrayal of our Australian values”.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks on Hamas’ attacks on Israel and ongoing conflict, in the House of Representatives at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“The evil committed by Hamas in Israel has chilled every Australian heart,” the prime minister said. “We’ve all been profoundly shocked by the scale and wantonness of these attacks.”
The atrocity affects what happens to both Israelis and Palestinians from now, he said.
“We must face what has happened and what is now unfolding with complete moral clarity. Hamas terrorists committed mass murder on a horrific scale. Jewish families here and across the world are mourning the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.
“This was no act of war against the army of an enemy. It was a slaughter of innocent people. It was an act of terror, calculated, pitiless brutality compounded by a rain of rockets designed to kill and to terrify without mercy and without discrimination,” Albanese said.
“We have learned of acts of violation and humiliation so grotesque they should be beyond imagination, but have been made reality by Hamas.
“They targeted young people at a music festival and hunted them down. They preyed on families, on children, on parents trying to protect their babies in what often proved to be their desperate final act.
“And Hamas celebrated. They wanted the world to see.”
10.09am
Biden warns Iran to stay out of the war
By Adam Carey
US President Joe Biden is considering making a trip to Israel in the coming days, a senior administration official says.
Biden gave an interview to 60 Minutes in the US earlier on Sunday (US time), in which he said that, while he believes Hamas must be eliminated, there must be a path for a Palestinian state.
US President Joe Biden may visit the Middle East in coming days, his office says.Credit: AP
Biden said any reoccupation of the Gaza Strip by Israel would be a wrong move. Most Palestinians do not support militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, he said.
He also cautioned that the threat of terrorism in the United States had increased since conflict broke out in the Middle East this month.
Biden said there was no need for the US to deploy troops to the region, and said he was confident that Israel would abide by the rules of war. He warned Iran, which backs Hamas and Hezbollah, not to escalate the war.
with Reuters
9.54am
US man killed Muslim boy and wounded woman in hate crime motivated by war, police say
By Adam Carey
A 71-year-old Illinois man was charged on Sunday with a hate crime, accused of fatally stabbing a young boy and seriously wounding a woman because of their Islamic faith and the Israel-Hamas war, authorities said.
Officers found the 32-year-old woman and six-year-old boy at a home in Plainfield Township, south-west of Chicago, late on Saturday morning, the Will County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on social media.
The statement added that the boy was pronounced dead at a hospital and the woman had multiple stab wounds but was expected to survive. An autopsy on the child showed he had also been stabbed multiple times.
“Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” the sheriff’s statement said.
AP
9.27am
Seventy civilians killed in attack on ‘safe route’, Amnesty says
By Adam Carey
Amnesty International says it has verified six videos of an attack on October 13 on a street that Israel had designated as a safe route into southern Gaza, following its directive to more than a million residents of the enclave’s north to evacuate.
Civilian casualties resulted from the attack, Amnesty said.
“Our research team found that a convoy, including a truck carrying around 30 people, 8 cars & other nearby people, incl. women, children & people with disabilities, was attacked,” it posted on X, formerly Twitter.
“Ambulances that arrived at the scene were hit in a second attack & rescuers injured. At least 70 died.”
9.10am
Australians support Palestinians: Victorian Islamic Council president
By Madeleine Heffernan
Adel Salman, president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, says the majority of Australians support Palestinians and that the Israeli government is committing war crimes.
Speaking after about 10,000 people attended a pro-Palestine rally in Melbourne on Sunday, and thousands more in Sydney, Salman said Australians have sympathy for Palestinians. About 2400 Palestinians had lost their lives as of Monday morning, as well as more than 1400 Israelis during the recent conflict.
Victorian Islamic Council president Adel Salman.Credit: Jason South
“Palestinians will condemn actions that result in the killing of Israeli innocent civilians, there’s no question about that. But this is the important part: Israel drops bombs, round-the-clock bombing on heavily populated areas when they know civilians will be killed. How is that not a war crime? How is that not murder?” Salman said on 3AW’s Neil Mitchell program.
“When you are carpet bombing the most heavily populated real estate on earth, you know that civilians will be killed,” he said.
Asked whether he believed the Australian people were prejudiced against Palestinians, Salman said the majority of Australians support Palestinians.
“I think the Australian government’s policy … is completely out of … step with the majority of Australians’ views.”
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