Protesters rally in Melbourne, Australia on June, 2 2024 in solidarity with Palestinians. (Photo by AAP)
Melbourne, June 3 (RHC)-- Thousands of protesters in Australia have staged a rally, blocking a major intersection in Melbourne to show support for innocent Palestinians trapped for months under Israeli fire in the besieged Gaza Strip.
"Today, the city was witness to the scenes and sounds of the war in Gaza," a statement from the protest organizers read on Sunday. The protesters lit flares and waved mock missiles and drones while others lay like casualties on the ground in an attempt to show the death and damage caused by the Israeli forces genocidal war on Gaza.
The organizers of the rally described the closure of an intersection as "a mere inconvenience," amounting to almost nothing in comparison to the mass killings and vast destruction in Gaza.
An estimated about 80 percent of the buildings in Gaza where some 2.5 million Palestinians were residing in their homes before the Israeli regime forces started bombing them, forced the people to flee their homes following a special retaliatory operation by Palestinian resistance groups on October 7, 2023.
Since then, the Israeli attacks have displaced almost the whole population and at least 36,439 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza authorities.
The protesters called on the Australian government to end the production, export and contracts of weapons manufacturing with Israel and Israeli companies as well as to impose sanctions on Israel and expel the Israeli envoy.
One of the protest organizers, Sri Lankan-Australian social worker and politician Samantha Shantini Ratnam called on the federal government to stop backing the brutal expansionist Israeli regime, and make Tel Aviv agree to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
"People have been gathering in their thousands in Melbourne and across Australia every Sunday since Israel began invading Gaza," Ratnam said. "This is becoming the largest movement for peace and they are working in peace to end the genocide of the Palestinian people."
Australian protesters staged a similar pro-Palestinian rally in Sydney's Hyde Park to show solidarity with the Gazans.
Addressing the protesters, Palestine Action Group activist Amal Naser said the scale of war crimes carried out by the Israeli regime forces was unprecedented in the Zionists’ atrocious history. "This week we have seen some of the most deadly and greatest massacres conducted by the Israeli regime to date," Naser explained. She urged the protesters "to continue filling the streets, we have to continue escalating and so our governments and so our leadership can no longer ignore us."
Anti-war protesters in theAmericas, Europe and other place worldwide have been calling on their governments to make efforts to end the Israeli atrocities in Gaza. Several governments have taken legal action at international courts in an effort to stop the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
he International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered Tel Aviv to stop its genocidal actions and allow humanitarian aid to reach the besieged Gaza Strip. The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has applied for an arrest warrant for Israeli "war criminal" prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Despite the mounting international pressure, the Western-backed Zionist regime continues to wreak death and destruction with impunity in the occupied Palestinian land.
