Tens of thousands of demonstrators have marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia, calling for peace and aid deliveries in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where a humanitarian crisis of man-made starvation has been worsening as a result of Israel’s punishing blockade.
Pro-Palestinian protesters braved heavy winds and rain on Sunday to march across the bridge, chanting “Ceasefire Now” and “Free Palestine”. Some of those attending the march, which the organisers dubbed the “March for Humanity”, carried pots and pans as symbols of the forced starvation wracking Gaza.
The protest came less than a week after a joint statement by Australia and more than a dozen other nations expressed the “willingness or the positive consideration … to recognise the state of Palestine as an essential step towards the two-State solution”.
France, Britain and Canada have in recent weeks voiced, and in some cases qualified, intentions to diplomatically recognise a Palestinian state as international concern and criticism have grown over the hunger crisis in Gaza.
At least 175 people, including 93 children, have died of starvation and malnutrition across the territory since Israel launched its war on Gaza after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel in October 2023, according to the latest Gaza Health Ministry figures.
Australia has called for an end to the war in Gaza, but has so far stopped short of a decision to recognise a Palestinian state.
Police said that up to 90,000 people had attended the protest while the organiser, Palestine Action Group Sydney, said in a Facebook post that as many as 300,000 people may have marched.
Marchers ranged from the elderly to families with young children. Among them was WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who did not address the crowd or speak to the media.
Mehreen Faruqi, the New South Wales senator for the left-wing Greens party, addressed the crowd gathered at central Sydney’s Lang Park, calling for the “harshest sanctions on Israel”, accusing its forces of “massacring” Palestinians.
Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, a book on the Israeli arms and surveillance industry, who spoke at the rally, told Al Jazeera that protesters are “outraged” not just by what Israel is doing in Gaza, but also by the Australian government’s “complicity”.
Loewenstein said that Australia has, for many years, including since the start of the war, been part of the global supply chain for the F-35 fighter jets that Israel has been using in attacking the besieged territory.
“A lot of Australians are aware of this,” he said. “We are deeply complicit, and people are angry that their government is doing little more than talk at this point.”
