‘Enough blood has been spilled’: concern over Gaza toll

October 10

Australia is warning it could stop repatriation flights out of Lebanon due to the low take-up of seats as worries flare over an all-out war.

The global community, including Australia, has warned Israel not to aggressively attack Lebanon as it has Gaza with calls to de-escalate the conflict and reach a ceasefire.

Senior minister Jason Clare is striking a stronger tone than the prime minister and ministerial counterparts on whether Israel is complying with international law while attacking listed terror groups Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Every country had a right to defend itself but “the bombing of schools and the bombing of hospitals, I think, are not complying with international law”, Mr Clare said.

“Enough blood has been spilled and it’s time for the suffering and starvation and the slaughter that’s happening in Gaza to end,” he told AAP.

Australian ministers have been reluctant to condemn the attacks and have instead called on Israel to comply with international law and decried the number of civilian deaths.

Israel maintains it is complying with international law and seeking to avoid civilian casualties, blaming Hamas for hiding among civilians and using their infrastructure to mask operations and weapon stocks.

The same argument is made of Hezbollah as Israel intensifies bombings in the Lebanese capital Beirut and attacks the southern parts of the country where Hezbollah has a stronghold.

Mr Clare, who represents a diverse Western Sydney electorate, said the war in the Middle East had a greater impact on members of his community than most other Australians.

“For most Australians, they see the death and destruction on television and they see a war on the other side of the world,” he said.

“For my community, those images of dead people are often people they are related to, their family and their friends.

“I remember hearing the story from one person about parents having to write the names of their children on the soles of their children’s feet in case in the morning they wake up and a bomb has exploded and that child is dead.”

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller warned Israel not to take military action in Lebanon “that looks anything like Gaza and leaves a result anything like Gaza”.

The comments were in line with Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s warning Lebanon cannot become a new Gaza.

Mr Miller supported a limited Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon to attack Hezbollah and called for the listed terror group’s “stranglehold” on the nation to be unclamped.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did not expressly condone Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon to strike Hezbollah as Mr Miller did, instead saying Israel had the right to self-defence but how it did so mattered.

He insisted the two were not incompatible after the opposition accused him of being contradictory by calling for de-escalation while backing Israel’s right to self-defence as it hunted down Hezbollah.

Cooled hostilities were needed for a diplomatic solution to succeed lest escalation occurred “ad infinitum with no end”, he said.

Almost 2000 Australians, permanent residents and their immediate families had been repatriated from Lebanon as of Thursday, with another two flights due to depart from Beirut.

Of those, 1425 have landed back in Australia.

The federal government is warning it will assess the viability of continuing to operate flights out of Lebanon with only about half of the 660 seats available on two planes out of Beirut on Wednesday taken up.

People in Lebanon are being warned to accept any seats on flights, with 2250 Australians and their families registered as wanting to leave.

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