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Excerpt:Senate passes Labor motion expressing ‘extreme disapproval’ against Mehreen Faruqi for Gaza sign protest
While the Coalition amendment failed, Labor’s original motion to sanction Mehreen Faruqi passes the Senate.
The Greens opposed the motion along with independent senator Fatima Payman while One Nation and independent senator Tammy Tyrrell teamed up with the two major parties to sanction Faruqi.
While we have been calling it a censure motion, it’s technically a motion to express “profound disapproval” against the senator but also includes that the Senate voted it not “appropriate for Senator Faruqi to represent the Senate as a member of any delegation during the life of this parliament”.
Middle East Conflict
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More than 100 aid organisations warned on Wednesday that “mass starvation“ was spreading in Gaza, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where more than 2 million people face severe shortages of food and other essentials after 21 months of conflict, triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel.
The UN said on Tuesday that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid since the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started operations in late May – in effect sidelining the existing UN-led system.
A statement with 111 signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that “our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away”.
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BRITAIN joined 24 other nations demanding Israel end its war in Gaza yesterday claiming the bloody conflict had plumbed “new depths.”
The joint statement said it was “horrifying” that more than 800 Palestinians in the strife-torn Hamas terror stronghold have been killed seeking food – including dozens yesterday.
But Israeli forces stepped up action in the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah yesterday – despite fears October 7 hostages are being held there.
An unprecedented joint statement condemning the war was signed by the foreign ministers of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
It said: “We come together with a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now. The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths.
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The Israeli military has launched a ground operation on Monday in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, sending in tanks a day after dropping leaflets on neighbourhoods advising people to evacuate.
The ground operation, the first to take place in the city since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza erupted in 2023, is being accompanied by aerial strikes by Israel’s air force.
Eyewitnesses said massive air strikes took place on the city overnight into Monday, one of the last remaining areas of the Strip not to suffer significant damage from the war.
The city is hosting thousands of Palestinians displaced from southern Gaza and is also the main hub for erratic aid deliveries due to its central location.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) cautioned against a military operation in Deir al-Balah after the IDF dropped evacuation orders on the city on Sunday.
20 Palestinians killed in Gaza aid site stampede, Israel-backed group says – National– globalnews.ca
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Twenty Palestinians were killed Wednesday in the crush of a crowd at a food distribution site run by an Israeli-backed American organization in the Gaza Strip, the group said, the first time it has acknowledged deadly violence at its operations. The deaths came as Israeli strikes killed 41 others, including 11 children, according to hospital officials.
The Gaza Humanitarian Fund accused the Hamas militant group of fomenting panic and spreading misinformation that led to the violence, though it provided no evidence to support the claim.
It said 19 people were trampled in a stampede and one person was fatally stabbed at a hub in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. Gaza’s Health Ministry and witnesses said GHF workers used tear gas against the crowd, inciting a panic. The ministry said that it was the first time people have been killed by a stampede at the aid sites.
It was also the first time that GHF has confirmed deaths at one of its distribution sites, although Palestinian witnesses, health officials and U.N. agencies say hundreds of people have been killed while heading to the hubs to get food.
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday made his first public appearance since the 12-day war between Israel and Iran began, attending a mourning ceremony on the eve of Ashoura.
Khamenei’s absence during the war suggested the Iranian leader, who has final say on all state matters, had been in seclusion in a bunker — something not acknowledged by state media. State TV in Iran showed him waving and nodding to the chanting crowd, which rose to its feet as he entered and sat at a mosque next to his office and residence in the capital, Tehran.
There was no immediate report on any public statement made. Iranian officials such as the parliament speaker were present. Such events are always held under heavy security.
After the United States inserted itself into the war by bombing three key nuclear sites in Iran, U.S. President Donald Trump sent warnings via social media to the 86-year-old Khamenei that the U.S. knew where he was but had no plans to kill him, “at least for now.”
On June 26, shortly after a ceasefire began, Khamenei made his first public statement in days, saying in a prerecorded statement that Tehran had delivered a “slap to America’s face” by striking a U.S. air base in Qatar, and warning against further attacks by the U.S. or Israel on Iran.
Trump replied, in remarks to reporters and on social media: “Look, you’re a man of great faith. A man who’s highly respected in his country. You have to tell the truth. You got beat to hell.”
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Expert Tal Beeri discussed how it is unknown why the religious directive had not been given, but if it were, Hezbollah would have joined the war against Israel on Iran’s side.
Hezbollah refrained from entering the war between Israel and Iran on Iran’s side due to a lack of religious directive, expert Tal Beeri said.
Beeri is the head of the Research Department at the Alma Center for the Study of Security Challenges in the North. He has published a detailed analysis titled “Why Didn’t Hezbollah Join Iran in the War against Israel?” In it, the Middle East expert challenged prevailing explanations for Hezbollah’s decision to refrain from entering the war on Iran’s side and also discussed the perceived gap between Hezbollah’s weakness and the actual reality.
Beeri noted: “There is a significant gap between the existing portrayal of Hezbollah’s supposed weakness and the actual reality.”
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting the United States on Monday, a visit analysts expect will focus on celebrating Israel and the US’s self-anointed victory against Iran and discussing a proposal for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza.
This is the third time this year Netanyahu will be meeting US President Donald Trump, who claims the US and Israel “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme during a 12-day war and that he would resume bombing Iran if it restarts nuclear activities.
Last week, Trump said Israel had agreed to conditions for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, which would allow all parties to work towards an end to Israel’s 21-month-long war on the besieged enclave.
On July 4, Hamas gave a “positive” response to Qatari and Egyptian mediators about the latest ceasefire proposal.
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Israel has decided to send a delegation to Qatar on Sunday for proximity talks with Hamas on the latest proposal for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had accepted the invitation despite what he described as the “unacceptable” changes that Hamas wanted to make to a plan presented by mediators from Qatar, the US and Egypt.
On Friday night, Hamas said it had delivered a “positive response” to the proposal for a 60-day ceasefire and that it was ready for negotiations.
However, a Palestinian official said the group had sought amendments including a guarantee that hostilities would not resume if talks on a permanent truce failed.
In Gaza itself, the Hamas-run health ministry said on Sunday that 80 people killed in Israeli attacks had arrived at hospitals over the past 24 hours.
