Also on Sunday, families and friends of hostages taken by Hamas addressed a gathering at a Sydney synagogue
Thousands of pro-Palestine protesters have gathered in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, pledging the rallies will not stop until “freedom and justice prevails”.
For the eighth week in a row, supporters for a free Palestine marched through the Sydney central business district, Melbourne CBD and in Logan, south of Brisbane.
“This is not about Judaism,” campaigner Assala Sayara told a crowd holding Palestinian flags and placards in Sydney’s Hyde Park on Sunday.
“This is not about the Jewish people and this is not about Hamas.
“This is about 75 years of occupation. This is 75 years of pain and mourning.”
“Our commitment to the Palestinian cause is not a one-day or seven-day or seven-week commitment, this is a long-term commitment,” she said.
“Even after we die, our children and our grandchildren will be committed to this movement.
“We will return to every single occupied territory in Palestine. We will continue to resist.”
Palestinian-Australian author and business coach Reem Borrows said the protests would continue “until freedom and justice prevails … until the brutal occupation ends”.
“We have been facing displacement and injustices that the world has denied for decades upon decades,” she said in Sydney.
“We have 5.9 million Palestinian refugees living in incredible poverty, living with no papers, no legal protection and against international law with no right of return.”
Similar themes were heard in Melbourne, where protesters demanded “end the occupation, lift the siege and stop the genocide” as they marched toward the Victorian parliament.
Jewish lawyer Sarah Schwartz said she was horrified to watch videos of Palestinian children in Gaza running from bombs as parents searched through the rubble for their dead children.
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about the Israeli victims of October 7 and for the Israeli hostages,” she said in Melbourne.
“If you find the events of October 7 abhorrent, as we all should, then you must see the ongoing injustices against Palestinians is also abhorrent.
“Humans everywhere have an instinct for freedom and if our safety depends on stifling another people’s cry for freedom, it is not real safety.”
Calls for a ceasefire and chants of “free Palestine” rang out at an event in Logan Gardens in Brisbane with organisers standing in front of a banner saying “all I want for Christmas is a ceasefire”.
Children’s shoes were hung from a white Christmas tree to symbolise those who have died in the conflict.
No arrests and no incidents were reported during Sunday’s rallies.
Elsewhere, families and friends of hostages taken by Hamas addressed hundreds gathered at the North Shore Synagogue in Lindfield on Sydney’s upper north shore on Sunday morning.
A women’s march also took place in Byron Bay, in northern NSW, where attendees gathered at Main Beach to stand in solidarity with Israeli women and girls who have been raped and assaulted at the hands of Hamas.
On Saturday, dozens of pro-Palestinian trade unionists set up picket lines at the Port of Fremantle in Western Australia in an attempt to stop a ship owned by ZIM, an Israeli shipping company, from sailing.
ABC News
Israel-Gaza: Israel continues to bombard southern Gaza on third day of renewed war as residents fear imminent ground invasion
Israel has continued to bombard the Gaza Strip on the third day of renewed war after the ceasefire with Hamas collapsed, hitting a refugee camp and southern cities where Gazans were previously evacuated to, as Gazans crowd into an ever-shrinking area in the south of the enclave.
Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday that 15,523 people, nearly 70 per cent of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza during the nearly two months of warfare.
The renewed fighting has heightened concerns for 136 Israeli hostages who, according to the Israeli military, are still held by Hamas and other militants in the Gaza Strip.
Southern ground offensive feared as Israeli strikes continue
Israel’s military ordered more areas in Gaza’s south to evacuate on Sunday as it bombed wide sections of the exclave, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians as civilians sought shelter in an ever-shrinking area of the south.
The Jabalia refugee camp in the north of Gaza was among the sites hit, killing several people, according to a Gazan health ministry spokesperson.
Bombardments from planes and artillery also continued to concentrate on the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, residents said.
Hamas said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops around 2 kilometres from Khan Younis.
The bodies of 31 people killed by the Israeli bombardment across central Gaza were taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, said Omar al-Darawi, a hospital administrative employee.
The main hospital in Khan Younis received at least three dead and dozens wounded on Sunday from an Israeli strike that hit a residential building in the city’s east, according to an AP journalist there.
“During the past hours, only 316 dead and 664 wounded were removed from rubble and taken to hospitals, but many others are still under the rubble,” health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said.
Gazans said on Sunday they feared an Israeli ground offensive on the southern areas was imminent.
Tanks had cut off the road between Khan Younis and Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, effectively dividing the Strip into three areas, they said.
The Israeli military ordered Palestinians to evacuate several areas in and around Khan Younis, posting a map highlighting shelters they should move to.
Before the latest evacuation orders, UN monitors said the areas told to evacuate made up about one-quarter of the territory.
UN officials and residents said it was difficult to heed Israeli evacuation orders because of patchy internet access and no regular supply of electricity.
And residents said that areas they had been told to go to were themselves coming under attack.
Israeli tanks shelled the eastern sector of Rafah on Sunday morning, residents said. There was no immediate comment from Israel on that.
After hundreds of thousands had fled the Israeli ground invasion in northern Gaza, residents said there was hardly any space for more displaced people in the south.
“Before, we used to ask ourselves whether we will die or not on this war, but in the past two days since Friday, we fear it is just a matter of time,” said Maher, a 37-year-old father of three, who spoke to Reuters by telephone.
“I am a resident of Gaza City, then we moved to Al-Karara in southern Gaza Strip and yesterday we fled to deeper shelter in Khan Younis and today we are trying to flee under the bombardment to Rafah,” he said.
In a new estimate, the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA) said about 1.8 million people — nearly 80 per cent of Gaza’s population — were internally displaced.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that Israel was coordinating with the US and international organisations to define “safe areas” for Gaza civilians.