DE GIORGIO: The US has offered military assistance without Israel even asking for it. Are we going to give the same support?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we have not been asked for military assistance. The Israeli Defence Force, of course, is very formidable. What we have done is to give political support. We are engaging between our Foreign Ministers, between Australia and Israel, discussed issues overnight. I spoke to the Israeli Ambassador to Australia, who’s there in Israel yesterday as well. And I say to any of your listeners who might be concerned about Australian citizens who are present in the region, they can ring 1300 555 135 in order to get information or to provide information indeed about people who might be in the region if they have concerns. This is a very traumatic time for, not just for Israel, but for the world. We saw more than a thousand Hamas fighters go into southern Israel and have indiscriminate killing, including of civilians. We’ve seen more than six hundred deaths there. We’ve seen hundreds of deaths as well in the Gaza Strip. And this is a very dangerous period in a very volatile part of the world.
DE GIORGIO: The US President has squarely blamed Iran. Even the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Iran gave the go ahead last Monday. Do you agree with the US? Is it your view that Iran is to blame here?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, certainly those examinations will take place over coming days, but this is an aggression initiated by Hamas that was not anticipated. There was no foreshadowing of this. We saw quite unprecedented actions, the most dangerous day in that part of the world for fifty years, and quite an extraordinary attack targeting civilians in an indiscriminate way and the capturing of hostages, of innocent people, young people, families, just going about their business. Young people going to a rave, people on Kibbutzs just going about their lives in a peaceful way is quite unprecedented and quite horrific and it’s been quite rightly condemned by the world.
DE GIORGIO: Do you regard this as a terrorist attack?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, quite clearly when you target innocent civilians, that is terror being created here. People going about their lives. This wasn’t a military to military conflict, this was targeting people in more than twenty towns and villages in southern Israel who were just going about their daily lives.
DE GIORGIO: There’s a lot of Australian families here, of course, who are Jewish or Israeli. They’ve lost loved ones and might still yet lose loved ones. What do you have to say to them this morning?
PRIME MINISTER: My heart goes out to anyone who loses an innocent civilian in such a dramatic and terrible way. This is a very difficult time for the community here, as well as the community in the Middle East. And the targeting of civilians is not acceptable, no matter who does it. This was worked through for, obviously a lot of planning went into this attack, which is why it’s been quite rightly condemned around the world. Israel does have a right to defend itself. It will do that, as you would expect.
Read the full transcript from the PM’s Office.