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The Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry (ECAJ), the peak rep­res­ent­at­ive body of the Aus­trali­an Jewish community, has condemned the ongoing rocket attacks from terrorist groups in Gaza aimed at civilian targets in Israel, including major pop­u­la­tion centres in Tel Aviv and in central and southern Israel.

“These rocket attacks were occurring before yesterday’s killing of Baha Abu al Ata, a senior commander of Palestini­an Islamic Jihad, and they have continued since”, said ECAJ co-CEO Peter Wertheim. “The claim being made by some groups and media outlets that the firing of rockets at Israeli cities has only commenced in response to the killing is a blatant falsehood”.

“It was al-Ata who ordered the rocket attack towards a music festival in Sderot on August 25, and a further rocket attack against that city as recently as November 1”, Wertheim noted. “Al-Ata was per­son­ally respons­ible for terrorist activity, including rocket and sniper attacks, aimed at Israeli civilians over a long period of time. The IDF had intel­li­gence that he was about to order another such attack. Under inter­na­tion­al law, Israel has the right to defend itself against an imminent attack of this nature, and it has a duty to its citizens to do so”.

Palestini­an Islamic Jihad, in its entirety, is listed as a terrorist organ­isa­tion under Australia’s Criminal Code. It receives dir­ec­tions and much of its funding, weaponry and training from the Iranian regime and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. It is openly committed to the military destruc­tion of Israel.

“Like other Palestini­an terrorist groups, Palestini­an Islamic Jihad delib­er­ately targets Israeli civilians while enscon­cing its own ter­ror­ists in high density civilian areas in Gaza, in order to use Palestini­an civilians as human shields”, Wertheim said. “That con­sti­tutes a double war crime – delib­er­ately targeting Israeli civilians, and delib­er­ately putting Palestini­an civilians in harm’s way”.

We express our solid­ar­ity with the people of Israel in this difficult time and call on Aus­trali­an politi­cians to condemn without equi­voc­a­tion or delay these gross viol­a­tions by the Palestini­ans of the laws and norms of armed conflict and inter­na­tion­al human­it­ari­an law. 2

We also call upon all sections of the media to report accur­ately on the targeting of civilians in Israel by Palestini­an terrorist organ­isa­tions in rocket attacks, as and when they occur, and not merely on Israel’s response to them.

Contact
Peter Wertheim AM | co-CEO
ph: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 5888
e: [email protected] | www.ecaj.org.au