Marie McInerney writes:
Western Australian Senator Fatima Payman resigned from the Labor Party today to sit as an Independent, after being forced, she said, by principle and conscience to vote against the Federal Government in a resolution on Palestine – a breach of party rules.
She did so “with a heavy heart, but a clear conscience”, saying that, unlike her colleagues, she knows how it feels to be on the receiving end of injustice.
“My family did not flee from a war-torn country to come here as refugees for me to remain silent when I see atrocities inflicted on innocent people,” she said, adding that the Federal Government’s indifference to the “greatest injustice of our times” made her question the direction that Labor had taken.
Watch her news conference here.
Water crisis
Meanwhile, as if life under siege and bombs was not enough for the people of Gaza, heat and a crippling water crisis is now adding to the toll.
In its latest situation report, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) reported piles of garbage and sewage continue to accumulate in Gaza, “rotting in the heat near displacement sites”.
“The extreme heat and lack of clean water continue to fuel the spread of infectious diseases, exacerbating the burden on an already overwhelmed and severely under-resourced health facilities,” it said.
UN aid worker Louise Wateridge described the conditions to iinternational media and on social media.
“You can hear bombardments from the north, the middle and the south…Gaza now really is hell on earth,” she said. “It’s very hot…Trash is piling up everywhere, people living under plastic sheeting where temperatures soar.”
United States news agency AP last week published a graphic report of children in sandals trudging through water contaminated with sewage and growing mounds of garbage in Gaza’s crowded tent camps for displaced families.
Hepatitis A cases are on the rise, and doctors fear an outbreak of cholera is increasingly likely, it said.
“People relieve themselves in burlap-covered pits, with nowhere nearby to wash their hands,” AP reported. “In the stifling summer heat, Palestinians say the odor and filth surrounding them is just another inescapable reality of war — like pangs of hunger or sounds of bombing.”
“The territory’s ability to dispose of garbage, treat sewage and deliver clean water has been virtually decimated by eight brutal months of war between Israel and Hamas. This has made grim living conditions worse and raised health risks for hundreds of thousands of people deprived of adequate shelter,” it said.
Fatima Payman resignation via X/Twitter
Previously at Croakey on Gaza
- New reports document an “unconscionable level of death and suffering” among children and civilians in Gaza
- Counting the environmental toll of war – and why peace is a climate solution
- Protecting healthcare from the violence of war must become a public health priority
- From Gaza: “We did not have time to bury them”
- Urgent calls for Gaza aid crossings to reopen as humanitarian access disintegrates
- Doctors call for greater pressure on Israel over Gaza
- Calls to stop the siege of Gaza, halt the arms supply, and end the health sector’s silence
- Gaza medical staff working under ‘profound psychological strain’ as further threats loom
- World medical leaders call for Gaza ceasefire amid mass graves horror
- New publication documents the terrible toll on women in Gaza
- “Silence becomes complicity”: MPs and other health professionals urged to take stand on Gaza
- “The question is no longer whether Palestinians will starve to death in a famine, but how many will do so”
- World leaders put on notice over Gaza, amid “war on children”
- As children starve to death in Gaza, health and medical academics urge colleagues to speak up
- Australian academics call on their universities to demand ceasefire, amid fears about famine, disease and scholasticide in Gaza
- “To those speaking out for the people of Gaza – thank you for not looking the other way”: Dr Sophie Scamps
- As Australia and other countries put pressure on Israel, health and medical organisations describe horrific conditions in Gaza
- As humanitarian nightmare escalates in Gaza, and the world enters “an age of chaos”, we must work harder for peace
- As global leaders and aid groups speak up about “catastrophic crisis” in Gaza, health professionals are under pressure to remain silent
- Health workers and agencies document the war’s wide-ranging impacts on people in Gaza
- From Gaza: finding words for the unimaginable
- Health leaders join growing calls for permanent ceasefire in Gaza and Israel
- As the people in Gaza experience a “living hell”, medical and humanitarian leaders step up pressure for a permanent ceasefire
- This doctor is urging medical leadership on ceasefire in Gaza and Israel, as United Nations warns of threat to global security
- Amid catastrophic health threats in Gaza, health leaders urge a permanent ceasefire
- Amid ongoing health catastrophe in Gaza, why the silence?
- As Gaza hospitals become “scenes of death, devastation, and despair”, global community urged to act for peace
- Doctors who work with refugees urge medical organisations to speak up for a ceasefire in Gaza
- “Worse every day”: toll mounts in Gaza, including for children and health workers
- “This cannot go on” – a cry for an end to intolerable suffering
- Medical organisation publishes open letter expressing “extreme concern” at Australia’s failure to support ceasefire in Gaza
- Health sector urged to speak out for ceasefire in Gaza
- Calls for ceasefire amid catastrophe in Gaza – “every child everywhere deserves peace”