Protests for Palestine continued in the week between Christmas and New Year. The December 29 protests marked the 64th weekend of continuous actions across Australia.
Leading up to these protests, Israel used remote-controlled vehicles and boxes of explosives to bring the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya to ruins. It was the only partially functioning medical facility in northern Gaza.
The Electronic Intifada reported that the hospital has suffered “relentless targeting of medical workers, patients and staff” since early October.
“For more than 80 days, the hospital’s director, a pediatrician named Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, has pleaded with the world to stop Israel’s genocidal attacks on his hospital, his staff and his patients,” the outlet reported.
Democracy Now! reported on December 27 that “the head of Gaza’s health agency says he’s lost contact with Kamal Adwan Hospital and at least 50 people have been killed, including five medical staff, in an Israeli airstrike on a building near the hospital in northern Gaza”.
Further, “five journalists [were] killed in an Israeli strike near Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat” that same week, according to DN!. The journalists worked for the Al-Quds Today channel and were in a van clearly marked “press”.
Israeli journalist Gideon Levy told DN! that “this mass killing is going on even now when you understand there is no purpose whatsoever except of killing more Palestinians”.
The war should have ended a long time ago, he said, and “this car of those five journalists is just one example of so many”.
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The Free Palestine Melbourne rally said “there are no holidays in Palestine as they endure a brutal Genocide and Apartheid regime”.
Speakers in Naarm/Melbourne included Ifram Ali from the Parachinar community, Egyptian activist Mohammed Helmy, Lebanese Italian activist Sarah Baarini and Palestinian activist and organiser Tasnim Mahmoud Sammak.
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Between 500 and 1000 people rallied and marched in Gadigal Country/Sydney on December 29. Rally speakers called for journalists to show solidarity with the hundreds of Palestinian journalists targeted and murdered in the continuing Israeli genocide in Gaza.
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Protesters in Muloobimba/Newcastle gathered outside federal ALP member’s office on Christmas Eve to sing pro-Palestine carols.
They were written by Ceasefire Christmas Carols and Seagreen Singers with a few tweaks to put it into an Australian and more secular context. Speakers included Jane York, from Mums for Palestine Melbourne, and Mark Stevenage, from Palestine Action Group Muloobinba.
Stevenage spoke about how Palestine is the birthplace of Jesus.
“We celebrate his birth — yet we stand by as genocide is happening there,” he said.
A child who was present took the microphone and spoke about how he cried himself to sleep last night, thinking of the children in Palestine who did not know if they would be alive at the end of the next day.
Activist David Whitson, dressed as a prawn, attracted enthusiastic honking by from passing motorists with his message “Shell prawns not Gaza”.
Campaign actions are continuing around the country, including a Gimuy/Cairns Vigil for Palestine on January 3, an Albury/Wodonga picnic for Palestine on January 5, and a Magan-djin/Brisbane vigil for healthcare workers on January 3.
Friends of Palestine WA has also organised a snap action on January 3 to protest the “forced evacuation” of the Kamal Adwan hospital.
Weekly rallies in Gadigal Country/Sydney and Naarm/Melbourne continue on Sundays.
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