As the people of Gaza face relentless bombardment, death, and destruction on an unprecedented scale, Australian organisations including Amnesty International, Oxfam Australia, Save the Children, Plan International Australia, ActionAid, Muslim Aid Australia, APHEDA-UnionAid Abroad, Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network (APAN), the Australian Council for International Development, Australian Council for International Development and Trade Unionists for Palestine are supporting the global call for an end to the transfer of arms to Israel.
On May 2, the Global Day of Action will mobilise an international coalition of arms experts, civil society organisations, climate activists, healthcare workers, faith leaders, journalists, academics, legal professionals, artists and students around the shared goal of calling on all states to halt the transfer of weapons, parts and ammunitions used to fuel atrocity crimes in Gaza.
The Global Day of Action will take place in fourteen countries across the world, kicking off in New Zealand, closely followed by events in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.
The events in Australia will be attended by members of the public, who will call on the Australian Government to immediately end the export of weapons and weapons parts where the Israeli Defence Force is the end user of the export.
Global Day of Action has a particular focus on the arms-exporting nations of the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Australia-and engage in public stunts and a coordinated social media campaign, with the intention of elevating the Global Day of Action’s central messages:
- Halt all transfer of weapons, parts and ammunition used to fuel the crisis in Gaza.
- Demand perpetrators of international humanitarian law violations and atrocity crimes are held to account.
- Urge governments to not be complicit in ongoing violations of international law by fulfilling their legal obligations and secure a permanent ceasefire now.
Although the Australian Government has said that Australia hasn’t exported weapons to Israel for 5 years, the Government has not confirmed whether weapon parts manufactured in Australia have been approved for export.
The Australian section of Lockheed Martin states on its website that “as a programme partner, Australian businesses are supplying components for the entire F-35 fleet, not just Australian aircraft. Every F-35 built contains some Australian parts and components.” The Israeli Air Force have used F-35s in air strikes on the occupied Gaza Strip. At the time of this publication, Lockheed Martin had removed this statement from their website.
In the Netherlands, a court has ordered the government to stop shipping F-35 parts to Israel because of the risk that they will be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law.
In the face of a UN Security Council Resolution calling for a ceasefire, the Government of Israel continues to use explosive weapons and munitions in densely populated areas with massive humanitarian consequences for the people of Gaza.
