Australians should be able to express their views on violence in Palestine without fear of being blacklisted, a minister says.
More than 18,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and many more have been pushed to starvation in the enclave, where most of its 2.3 million residents have been driven from their homes.
Desperate scenes in the Gaza Strip have sparked protest around the world as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas, of which the latter is considered a terrorist group by the Australian government.
In Australia, some protest actions have drawn a strong backlash but federal industry minister Ed Husic says that is not right.
Three directors of the Sydney Theatre Company stepped down after actors donned the Palestinian keffiyeh scarf during a curtain call for its production of Chekhov's The Seagull.
Medical practitioners who signed a petition about the humanitarian impact of violence in Gaza were being investigated, according to Mr Husic.
Some journalists have been taken off stories about the conflict after signing a letter calling for "professional scepticism" on uncorroborated Israeli government and military sources, and "human-focused coverage".
Mr Husic told ABC Radio on Tuesday that people who express concerns about what they are seeing in Gaza "shouldn't have to face professional retribution as a response".
"If people who express a view - and have the decency to show heart in relation to what's happening in Gaza and call out the need to recognise humanity - are then effectively professionally blacklisted, I don't think that's right," he said.
Mr Husic continued to condemn the actions of Hamas, whose invasion on October 7 killed 1200 Israelis and sparked the latest iteration of violence in a long history of conflict.
But he called Israel's retaliation "very disproportionate".
Mr Husic said learning of the deaths of Palestinian children had been particularly difficult.
"Those those kids are not Hamas, and they should not have had to bear the brunt of that military action," he said.
