The Australian government remains silent, continues to call Israel “our friend”, and rewards Israel’s war machine in a new contract with the Israeli arms firm Elbit. The Federal Government sends more troops to the Middle East while starving Palestinians in northern Gaza are massacred as they desperately seek food for their families, babies in Gaza are dying of starvation and dehydration and the IDF sexually abuses and rapes Palestinian women prisoners.

On 29-2-24 Israeli troops fired on thousands of desperate, starving Palestinians in the north of Gaza killing 112 and wounding 760 according to the Gaza health Ministry. Palestinian police, previously keeping order and protecting aid trucks, have been killed in previous incidences. Al Shafa hospital, mostly destroyed by Israel troops, was overwhelmed and due to lack of resources could only provide first aid. There are now 30,000 Palestinians who have been killed, the majority still women and children, and over 70,000 wounded let alone the numbers of dead under the rubble and the thousands imprisoned by Israel.

In Al Adwan hospital in northern Gaza it was reported on the 29-2-24 that seven babies had died from starvation as the IDF blocked roads and continued to shoot at aid trucks as they attempted to reach the northern section of Gaza, and doctors expect to receive many more as hundreds of babies and thousands of Gazans face starvation. The hospital does not even have enough milk to give to these struggling infants.

Not only is Israel conducting mass killings of desperate Palestinians and using forced starvation as weapon of war, they are also using torture and illegal detention of hundreds of men and women and girls who have been arbitrarily detained in Gaza and the West Bank since October 7th. Among these detainees are doctors and other health workers, journalists and human rights workers. Reporting on February 19 2024 UN experts Reem Alsalem and Francesca Albanese stated that credible accusations have emerged “ . . . of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children in places........

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