ANKARA
Australia’s foreign minister has declined to meet with the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories amid Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza.
Speaking to Australia’s National Press Club on Tuesday, the UN official, Francesca Albanese, said she requested a meeting with Foreign Minister Penny Wong but was denied because Wong was meeting with someone else.
“I understand she is very busy,” said Albanese, local broadcaster SBS reported.
Australian Senator Mehreen Faruqi criticized Wong for not meeting with Albanese.
“What is Minister Penny Wong afraid of? Hearing the truth about Israel’s war crimes?” she said on X.
Speaking to reporters, Albanese also raised questions over Israel’s assertion of self-defense under international law, noting it is not a stand-alone state but an armed group in the occupied territory that has threatened Israel.
She compared the attack on Gaza to the 2015 Paris terror attacks, which were carried out by Daesh/ISIS-linked cells operating from neighboring Belgium.
“Did France go and bomb entire residential areas in Belgium? No,” she said, according to SBS.
The UN special rapporteur compared the situation in Gaza to the Nakba, the 1948 “catastrophe” when some 750,000 Palestinians were exiled from their land by Israel.
“Individual member states, especially in (the) West — and Australia is no exception — are on the margins, muttering inaudible words of condemnation for Israel’s excesses at best, or stay silent in fear of restraining Israel’s claimed right to self-defense, whatever it means,” she added.
People in a number of cities, including the capital, Canberra, staged protests against the Israeli bombing of Gaza and called on the government to play its role in an immediate cease-fire.
Students for Palestine also staged protests in front of parliament and demanded the ruling and opposition parties to condemn Israel and play its role in stopping the bombing in Gaza.
Speaking in parliament, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese again supported the Israeli assertion of self-defense, saying: “We have also said that the way that it does matters, and we must distinguish between Hamas and Palestinian citizens.”
“I have said very clearly that every Israeli and every Palestinian life matters,” Albanese told parliament.
He added that his country wants humanitarian pauses and urged Israel to uphold international law and protect innocent civilians.
– Australia ‘does not militarily support Israel’
During the debate in parliament, opposition lawmaker David Shoebridge and Wong exchanged heated words when Shoebridge asked about the US supplying Israel with weapons used in Gaza.
“What guarantees can you give that Australian 155-millimeter artillery shells produced by our munitions will not be directly exported to the state of Israel in the future or indirectly sent for use in Gaza?” Shoebridge asked in parliament.
Responding to the question, Wong said that since the beginning of the war in Gaza, Australia has not provided any military support to Israel.
She also called the question inappropriate and accused the lawmaker of trying to make it a political issue.
“Penny Wong just accused me of trying to make a political issue of Australian exports of weapons to Israel — as if this country making $$ from war crimes is somehow above politics?” Shoebridge later wrote on X.
