Wollongong Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery has described Israel’s actions against the Palestinian people as “nothing more than just a holocaust”.
Speaker after speaker at the Wollongong rally demanded the Morrison government finally act against Israel for decades of “ethnic cleansing”.
A fragile ceasefire is holding in Gaza after Israel and Hamas agreed to pause 11 days of bloodshed that’s so far killed about 250 Palestinians, including 66 children, and 12 Israeli civilians and a soldier.
Hundreds have also been wounded on both sides after after Israeli forces tried to forcibly evict Palestinians from their homes in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah and stormed the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
Cr Bradbery said it was important to “remind our government we need a two-state solution which will allow the people of Palestine to be free”.
“I’m very conscious of the fact that Gaza has an incredible concentration of human beings, 5000 human beings per kilometre – and it is a concentration of misery, created and supported by western governments,” he said.
“I’m also very conscious of the fact that our Aboriginal brothers and sisters have been ill treated as well, but at least we are doing something about it, whereas in Palestine we are just kicking the can down the road once more.
Read the article by Agron Latifi in the Illawarra Mercury.