Anthony Albanese has expressed his astonishment at claims made by Israel’s prime minister that “there is no starvation in Gaza”, telling Labor MPs that statement is “beyond comprehension”.<\/p>\n
The prime minister made the comments in response to a question from a Labor backbencher about when Australia would move to recognise Palestinian statehood.<\/p>\n
Mr Albanese \u2014 who has been sharpening his criticism of Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip \u2014 appeared to directly criticise Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who posted a clip to X saying “there is no starvation in Gaza, no policy of starvation in Gaza”.<\/p>\n
That assertion was repeated in Canberra yesterday by Israeli’s deputy ambassador to Australia, Amir Meron.<\/p>\n
“Those claims that there’s no starvation in Gaza are beyond comprehension,” Mr Albanese told the Labor caucus, according to a spokesperson.<\/p>\n
The prime minister outlined Australia’s pre-conditions for recognition, including “democratic reforms” in the Palestinian territory, but indicated these obstacles were not insurmountable, referencing a famous quote from Nelson Mandela that “it always seems impossible until it’s done”.<\/p>\n
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said she was “incredibly distressed by the images” coming out of Gaza but declined to say whether she thought starvation was occurring.<\/p>\n
“It’s a complex situation on the ground \u2026 I’m pleased to see aid is flowing further and better,” she told reporters in Canberra.<\/p>\n
Ms Ley added the war “could end tomorrow” if Hamas released the hostages and surrendered.<\/p>\n
“It’s vital that we know that these underpinnings of the circumstances that we now see horrendous situations ensuing from can all be resolved by Hamas,” she said.<\/p>\n
The prime minister’s intervention came amid growing international concern about both the number of deaths at aid centres managed by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the level of hunger in the enclave.<\/p>\n
Overnight, US President Donald Trump also appeared to dispute Mr Netanyahu’s statement, saying Palestinians living in the strip “have to get food and safety right now”.<\/p>\n
Asked whether he agreed with the Israeli PM, Mr Trump responded: “Based on television, I would say not particularly because those children looked very hungry.<\/p>\n
“Nobody’s done anything great over there, the whole place is a mess.”<\/p>\n
Mr Trump also announced on Monday that the US would look to establish walk-in food relief centres without fencing boundaries in Gaza as part of a bid to increase humanitarian aid being delivered, and said he expected other nations to contribute.<\/p>\n
The comments came after bilateral discussions with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer about the situation in Gaza, with the prime minister proposing a plan for peace in the strip inclusive of a ceasefire between Israel and the terrorist organisation Hamas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Albanese has expressed his astonishment at claims made by Israel’s prime minister that “there is no starvation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-29018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}