Israel Gaza: Netanyahu making a 'mistake', says Biden.
US President Joe Biden has said he believes that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is making a "mistake" in his handling of Gaza.
"I think what he's doing is a mistake. I don't agree with his approach," he said in an interview.
He said Gaza should have "total access to all food and medicine" for the next six to eight weeks.
Last week he warned ongoing US support for the war depended on Israel allowing in more food and medicine.
Israel has denied impeding the entry of aid or its distribution inside Gaza, and has accused UN agencies on the ground of failing to get the aid that is allowed in to the people who need it.
Source: BBC
Spain’s Sanchez says ‘disproportionate’ Israeli Gaza attacks a world threat
Prime minister pushes for recognition of a Palestinian state, says such a ‘just’ move would be in European Union’s interest.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called Israel’s “disproportionate response” in its
war on Gaza a regional and global threat and says the recognition of a Palestinian state is in Europe’s “geopolitical interests”.
“The international community cannot help the Palestinian state if it does not recognise its existence,” he told members of parliament on Wednesday, adding that such a move was “just” and “what’s demanded by the social majority”.
Source: Al-Jazeera
Israel Gaza: Australia hints it could recognise Palestinian state.
Australia's foreign minister has suggested the country could recognise Palestinian statehood, to increase momentum towards peace.
However Hamas could have no role in its governance, Penny Wong said.
Both Australia's opposition and the Zionist Federation of Australia say such a move would be premature.
Canberra has long said that recognition of a Palestinian nation could only come as part of a two-state solution brokered with Israel.
But Ms Wong's comments echo a speech by UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron earlier this year, in which he hinted
the UK too could recognise Palestinian statehood without the support of Israel.
The Australian government has in recent months increasingly voiced concerns about the war against Hamas in Gaza - including after
an Australian aid worker was killed alongside six others in an Israeli air strike. The aid workers were travelling in a convoy after picking up supplies when the IDF says they were wrongly identified as Hamas operatives and targeted.
In a speech on Tuesday night, Ms Wong said a two-state solution - where Israelis and Palestinians lived side by side in separate countries - was "the only hope to break the endless cycle of violence".
"The failures of this approach by all parties over decades - as well as the Netanyahu government's refusal to even engage on the question of a Palestinian state - have caused widespread frustration," she said.
"So the international community is now considering the question of Palestinian statehood as a way of building momentum towards a two-state solution."
The opposition's foreign affairs spokesman, Simon Birmingham, said it did not support such a move and that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government was threatening to "break decades of bipartisan Australian foreign policy".
#
"The Albanese government's argument to pre-emptively recognise a Palestinian state puts statehood before security, and will be seen as a win by the terrorists who initiated the current horrific conflict," he said in a statement.
Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said any talk of recognition of Palestinian statehood was "entirely premature".
"Before any talk of statehood is credible, Hamas must be removed and a new generation of Palestinian leadership must emerge, which isn't corrupt, don't condone violence and recognises Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state," he said.
However Ms Wong said claims that recognition of a Palestinian state would be "rewarding the enemy" were "wrong". Israel's security depends on a two-state solution, she said, and recognition of statehood would help undermine and marginalise Hamas.
About 140 countries recognise Palestinian statehood, but many including the US, the UK, Germany and Australia do not.
Source: BBC