The 50th week of continuous protests against Israel’s genocide came days after Israel’s terrorist attacks on the people of Lebanon, by means of exploding devices such as pagers and walkie-talkies.
At least 25 people were killed and more than 600 wounded in Lebanon on September 18 when electronic devices “exploded without warning”, according to Democracy Now on September 19. Some of the blasts happened at the funerals of some of the 12 people killed the day before. Thousands more people were left with “gruesome injuries”.
“This has been widely reported in the Western press as a sophisticated campaign that targeted alleged [Lebanese resistance group] Hezbollah operatives,” journalist Lara Bitar told Democracy Now. “But the reality is that, for the most part, these explosions were occurring in civilian areas.”
Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah are because it is supporting the people of Gaza against Israel's genocide. Israeli spokespeople confirmed that the attacks on Lebanon are a “new phase” of the same war.
By September 23, Israel had launched hundreds of airstrikes across southern and eastern Lebanon, killing more than 100 people and wounding more than 400.
Bitar said “the Israeli government has already taken a decision to escalate, to wage full-scale war on all of Lebanon”.
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Justice for Palestine organiser, Phil Monsour, opened the September 20 protest rally in Magan-djin/Brisbane saying, “I struggle with the idea that someone could say ‘push that switch now, let's blow 3000 people up’”.
Monsour described the pager explosions as “state terror”, adding, “we march as human beings who will not accept state terror, will not accept occupation, will not accept apartheid”.
Nasser Mashni from the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), who also spoke, said “we are at week 50 and we are still going, unbroken and unconquered like the heroes in Palestine”.
“The fight for Palestine is an anti-racist, anti-colonial movement; it's a fight for a world of tomorrow where we all belong.”
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Mashni condemned the “terrorist state of Israel” of today “with impunity to kill, to crush, to booby trap”. He said that when Israel “set those pagers off” they could not and did not know “if somebody was picking up their kids from school” or “if a kid would pick up a beeper from a table and look at it and die as did two children in Lebanon”.
The rally also came two days after the Australian government abstained on a United Nations vote against Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.
Justice for Palestine organiser and Greens’ Moreton candidate Remah Naji told the rally that “Labor apologists” will claim that this was the right decision, but these are “weasel words”. “The Labor Party does not have a moral backbone ... They sold us, and threw us under the bus.”
A few days before the Gaza Ministry of Health released the names, ages and Israeli-approved identification numbers of 34,344 people killed by Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, as at August 31. A further 7613 people, who have not been identified, have been declared dead on arrival at Gazan hospitals.
The first 14 pages of names — 710 babies — were listed as age 0, meaning they were killed before they reached their first birthday.
Naji and Mashni also spoke at a forum on Grassroots movements and electoral politics on September 21.
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Thousands of people joined the weekly protest in Naarm/Melbourne on September 22, marching from the State Library to Parliament House.
Jacob Andrewartha reports that Meriki Onus from Warriors of Aboriginal Resistance spoke, making the comparison between the settler-colonial history of Australia and the struggle for a free Palestine.
Onus added that a victory for Palestine would lay the basis for the “freedom of all First Nations and oppressed people from settler-colonial states all around the world”.
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Palestinian activist, Iman Hassayen, refected on the protests against Land Forces, condemning weapon’s manufactures which profit from the “genocide of Palestinians”. “Our demands are clear, Israel must be sanctioned and an arms embargo must be imposed.”
Thousands marched through the centre of Gadigal Country/Sydney on September 22 to protest Israel's terrorism and genocide in Lebanon and Palestine.
Peter Boyle reported the march was organised by the Palestine Action Group Sydney. Powerful street theatre has been part the large protests against Israel's war crimes in all major cities in Australia, but the corporate media is not covering them.
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This silence shows their criminal complicity in the Gaza genocide.
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Chloe DS reports that a rally for Palestine was organised in Dja Dja Wurrung Country/Castlemaine on September 22.
High school student and Disrupt Land Forces (DLF) protester Arlo recounted the anti-weapons protest held the previous week in Naarm/Melbourne. He spoke about militarism having deep ties to colonial oppression, including the oppression of First Nations.
“Militarism and colonialism is killing people,” Arlo said. He criticised the biased media coverage that depicted protesters as “violent” when armed police were the violent ones. “I was happy to be part of this festival of resistance.”
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Jen, who chaired the rally, pointed to Labor's inaction and hypocrisy. “I'm tired of your words Penny and Albo. You have the power to sanction Israel and you do nothing.” She said rallies give “hope” that people power can collectively “make change”.
Rowan, also part of organising DLF, spoke about how “we need to build the narrative that militarism should not be pushed in our society”. He encouraged people to protest against the Avalon air show next year, saying “it's like Land Forces, but this time it's Air forces”.
He said many people from the local area were proud to help the DLF events, such as the Anti Military Motorcade, the vigil for Gaza and the Red Rebels die-in.
Meera, who was also part of DLF, spoke about the truth-telling circle at Camp Sovereignty. She reported on a Vigil for Gaza where volunteers had folded and displayed over 16,000 paper kites — one for every child martyred in Gaza.
In Unanderra/Wollongong, a 100-strong protest against Bisalloy Steel was organised by Wollongong Friends of Palestine on September 19. Bisalloy Steel produces steel products, including one used in Israeli tanks.
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The rally in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide on September 22 highlighted Israel’s daily war crimes and atrocities. Jordan Ellis reported “this last week, footage emerged of Israeli soldiers pushing dead bodies off a rooftop in the occupied West Bank”.
Other actions in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide included a community fundraiser on September 22 and a protest outside Caltex on September 15.
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Socialist Alliance national co-convenor, Sam Wainwright, condemned the Australian government on September 23 for refusing to vote for Palestine’s motion at the United Nations.
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