Penny Wong has acknowledged “widespread suffering” of civilians in Gaza but has stopped short of saying Israel’s siege amounts to collective punishment of Palestinians, during a fiery Senate committee hearing.
The Australian foreign minister was challenged by the Greens senator Jordon Steele-John to concede that Israel’s strikes on the Gaza Strip met the “textbook definition of collective punishment”.
The industry minister, Ed Husic, said last week that Palestinians were being “collectively punished for Hamas’s barbarism”, a view backed by fellow frontbencher Anne Aly.
But Wong said she would use her own words to describe the “extraordinarily difficult and complex and distressing crisis” in the Middle East.
“We acknowledge the terrible suffering of innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip,” she told a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday.
“This is precisely why the government has called for a humanitarian pause … to get assistance to innocent civilians in Gaza.”
With 79 Australian citizens, permanent residents and family members still trying to escape Gaza, Wong also expressed her frustration at being unable to secure a humanitarian corridor to date.
“Obviously, we worry about the whole conflict and the loss of life but right at the present time the fact that we can’t assist Australians in getting out of Gaza is the thing that I am most deeply [concerned about],” she said.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, stood alongside Joe Biden at the White House earlier and told reporters: “We grieve for the loss of every innocent life, whether that be Israeli or Palestinian.”
Albanese announced that Australia would provide $15m in humanitarian assistance for civilians in Gaza, on top of $10m already committed, to deliver “life-saving assistance such as emergency water and medical services”.
At the press conference, Biden said Israel had a right to “respond to the slaughter of their people” in the 7 October Hamas attacks but it should “do everything in its power, as difficult as it is, to protect innocent civilians”.
Biden said he was “alarmed about extremist settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank” as these actions were “pouring gasoline on fire”.
The Australian government on Thursday backed the US president’s call for continued pursuit of a two-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians live in security within internationally recognised borders.
“This will need to see all sides respect the right of the other to exist,” Wong said.
Steele-John began his questions at the Senate committee by condemning the “horrendous and unjustifiable” Hamas attacks, acknowledging “the deep grief and pain of the Australian Jewish community as they grieve some 1,400 dead as a result of those terror attacks”.
But he also expressed solidarity with the Palestinian community who were grieving “some 5,000 or more dead in Gaza and horrendous impacts on civilians as a result of the policy response of the Netanyahu government”.
Steele-John asked if the government would “now condemn the commission of war crimes by the state of Israel upon the population of Gaza” and “crime against humanity”.
Wong replied that she understood “the politics of why you are trying to press this point” but Australia would continue to call for “the protection of civilian lives and for the observance of international humanitarian law”.
Wong reiterated that “the way Israel exercises its right to defend itself matters”.
“There is clearly widespread suffering in Gaza,” she said.
“And we know that Hamas, which is a terrorist organisation, has burrowed itself into Gaza’s civilian population, so none of this is easy. This is all tragically difficult.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s international law branch assistant secretary, Marie-Charlotte McKenna, said sieges were “not in themselves prohibited under international humanitarian law”.
“However, international humanitarian law does provide for the facilitation of humanitarian assistance and Australia has called for safe and unimpeded access and for a humanitarian pause,” McKenna said.
Dfat officials confirmed Wong had spoken to “a wide number of counterparts through the region” since the 7 October attacks.
That included a call on Monday with the foreign minister of Iran, a country that supports Hamas.
Wong said she had used the call to press the Australian government’s views “in relation to hostages, humanitarian access, the need to not have escalation”.
