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The Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry, the peak rep­res­ent­at­ive body of the Aus­trali­an Jewish community is deeply concerned by reports of renewed rocket fire from Gaza, which has caused injuries and loss of property in the vicinity of Kfar Saba in central Israel. We under­stand that at least six people, including two babies have suffered burns and shrapnel injuries, and that at least one home was totally destroyed in the attack.  In a tragic and oft-over­looked aspect of such acts of war, four pet dogs also died from the impact of the rocket.

The firing of rockets at civilian pop­u­la­tions is a war crime. Not only is it designed to terrorise and cause maximum loss of civilian life in Israel, the rockets are often delib­er­ately fired from densely populated civilian areas in Gaza, to provide cover from Israeli return fire. This also is a war crime that endangers the very people Palestini­an militants claim to be pro­tect­ing,  and turns civilian infra­struc­ture into legit­im­ate military targets.

We wish the people of Israel strength in this difficult time and pray for the speedy recovery of the injured in body and mind.

It appears that these attacks are timed to distract inter­na­tion­al attention from the growing uprising against Hamas’s tyr­an­nic­al rule in Gaza, which is being brutally repressed by Palestini­an security forces using methods including live fire and torture. We call on both gov­ern­ment and non-gov­ern­ment­al actors to condemn the rocket attacks without equi­voc­a­tion and to pay due attention to events in Gaza, which have for the most part escaped the focus of inter­na­tion­al media and activists who claim to champion Palestini­an human rights.

We also wish to commend the Aus­trali­an Gov­ern­ment for voting against all anti-Israel res­ol­u­tions tabled under the UN Human Rights Council’s notorious Agenda Item 7, which is the only agenda item devoted to con­demning a specific country. The Aus­trali­an gov­ern­ment is also to be commended for voting against the adoption by the UN Human Rights Council of a report falsely accusing Israel of com­mit­ting war crimes in Gaza. We are pleased that a growing number of European and South American nations are now following the lead­er­ship and moral clarity of Australia by opposing these egregious res­ol­u­tions both in word and in deed.

Contact
Alex Ryvchin | Co-CEO
ph: 02 8353 8505 | m: 0478 297 245
e: [email protected] | www.ecaj.org.au