Australia's ruling party faces backlash over 'slow' response to Israeli war crimes

By Anadolu staff

ANKARA (AA) - Australia's ruling party is facing a backlash in its several traditionally safe constituencies, where Muslim voters are threatening to abandon the party over its "failure" to call out Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

Mariam Tomahy, a member of Teachers and School Staff for Palestine, said Foreign Minister Penny Wong's calls for an investigation into the killing of 15 paramedics in Gaza, were "too little, too late," given the earlier silence from the government about the killing, which happened last month.

It's a very slow response and we expect a lot more from our government," she told the Australian Associated Press.

"We consider these kinds of statements as lip service, to be honest."

The pro-Palestine group rallied in Bankstown, a suburb of Sydney, on Sunday afternoon to call out a rise in Islamophobia since the start of the war in Gaza.

Australians will go to the polls on May 3 to elect a new government for a three-year term.

A video released on Saturday by The New York Times exposed a deliberate lie by the Israeli army regarding the killing of 15 Palestinian paramedics in southern Gaza on March 23.

In its initial statement and after international outrage, the Israeli army claimed that the vehicles were advancing “suspiciously” from its forces "without headlights, or emergency signals, (and) their movement was not coordinated in advance."

The army claimed that nine members from Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups were killed in the attack.

However, the footage contradicted Israeli claims and presented new evidence that the vehicles involved in the attack were clearly marked and had their emergency lights on.

*Writing by Aamir Latif