SYDNEY: Several hundred pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated in Sydney on Thursday against the first visit to Australia by an Israeli prime minister, branding Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal.”
A police helicopter hovered over the city as speakers slammed Canberra’s strong support of Netanyahu and his government.
“We are here to oppose Australia’s support for Israel, for a racist apartheid nation,” pro-Palestinian author and Australian lawyer Randa Abdel-Fattah told AFP.
“It’s disgusting to see that some of our Australian leaders have rolled out the red carpet and welcomed a war criminal into Australia,” she said.
“But there are so many Australians who are against this and we are raising our voices loudly and clearly today, to say (Prime Minister) Malcolm Turnbull, and (Foreign Minister) Julie Bishop, ‘not in our name’,” she added.
A large banner was unfurled depicting Netanyahu with a mustache as Hitler and the word “Fascist” written underneath.
Pro-Israel supporters were also on the streets and The Australian newspaper reported that riot squad officers removed a man who approached the crowd shouting “long live Israel.”
The demonstrators, organized by the local Palestine Action Group, tried to march on Netanyahu’s hotel but were cut off by police well short of the city center building overlooking the harbor.
Ahead of Netanyahu’s arrival Wednesday, some 60 business leaders, academics, members of the clergy and former politicians signed a letter saying Australia should not welcome Netanyahu, claiming his policies “provoke, intimidate and oppress” the Palestinians.
Earlier, Turnbull attacked the UN for “one-sided resolutions” against Israel’s push to build settlements on occupied land as he welcomed Netanyahu.
Ahead of the four-day visit, Turnbull wrote a newspaper editorial slamming the UN Security Council for a resolution adopted in December that called for an end to Israeli settlement building on occupied Palestinian territory.
“My government will not support one-sided resolutions criticizing Israel of the kind recently adopted by the UN Security Council and we deplore the boycott campaigns designed to delegitimize the Jewish state,” Turnbull wrote in The Australian newspaper.
Netanyahu welcomed the strong show of support, telling reporters he “was delighted” by the article.
“Australia has been courageously willing to puncture UN hypocrisy more than once,” Netanyahu said at a joint press conference with Turnbull.
“The UN is capable of many absurdities and I think it’s important that you have straightforward and clear-eyed countries like Australia that often bring it back to earth,” he said.
Turnbull said he supported direct negotiations toward a two-state solution, but warned that Israel’s security needs would have to be met for any peace agreement to take hold.
“You cannot expect any Israeli government to put itself in a position where security is at risk, where its citizens are not safe. The first duty of every government is the safety of the people,” he said.
In a separate development, Netanyahu backed pardoning a soldier sentenced to 18 months in prison for shooting dead a wounded Palestinian assailant, media reported.
“I am still in favor of pardoning Private Azaria,” Netanyahu told reporters accompanying him on the visit, Israel’s Channel 10 said.
A poll published Wednesday by the Maariv daily found 69 percent of Israelis support a pardon, with 56 percent saying the punishment was too severe.
In Australia, Netanyahu expressed concern about the potential impact of the trial on soldiers facing violence who might hesitate to fire for fear of investigation, public radio reported.
Hundreds denounce ‘Fascist’ Netanyahu during Australia visit
Hundreds denounce ‘Fascist’ Netanyahu during Australia visit
Fledgling radio station aims to be ‘voice of the people’ in Gaza
- The electricity crisis is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip, says Shereen Khalifa Broadcaster
DEIR EL-BALAH: From a small studio in the central city of Deir El-Balah, Sylvia Hassan’s voice echoes across the Gaza Strip, broadcast on one of the Palestinian territory’s first radio stations to hit the airwaves after two years of war.
Hassan, a radio host on fledgling station “Here Gaza,” delivers her broadcast from a well-lit room, as members of the technical team check levels and mix backing tracks on a sound deck. “This radio station was a dream we worked to achieve for many long months and sometimes without sleep,” Hassan said.
“It was a challenge for us, and a story of resilience.”
Hassan said the station would focus on social issues and the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which remains grave in the territory despite a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas since October.
“The radio station’s goal is to be the voice of the people in the Gaza Strip and to express their problems and suffering, especially after the war,” said Shereen Khalifa, part of the broadcasting team.
“There are many issues that people need to voice.” Most of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people were displaced at least once during the gruelling war.
Many still live in tents with little or no sanitation.
The war also decimated Gaza’s telecommunications and electricity infrastructure, compounding the challenges in reviving the territory’s local media landscape. “The electricity problem is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip,” said Khalifa.
“We have solar power, but sometimes it doesn’t work well, so we have to rely on an external generator,” she added.
The station’s launch is funded by the EU and overseen by Filastiniyat, an organization that supports Palestinian women journalists, and the media center at the An-Najah National University in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.
The station plans to broadcast for two hours per day from Gaza and for longer from Nablus. It is available on FM and online.
Khalifa said that stable internet access had been one of the biggest obstacles in setting up the station, but that it was now broadcasting uninterrupted audio.
The Gaza Strip, a tiny territory surrounded by Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea, has been under Israeli blockade even before the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which sparked the war. Despite the ceasefire, Israel continues to strictly control the entry of all goods and people to the territory.
“Under the siege, it is natural that modern equipment necessary for radio broadcasting cannot enter, so we have made the most of what is available,” she said.
