The safety of Australians in the Middle East remains the government’s top priority as the war between Israel and Palestine escalates.
About 900 people are dead and thousands more wounded after the Islamist group Hamas attacked Israeli towns on Saturday in a continuation of a 75-year-long Arab-Israel conflict.
At least a further 400 were killed in Israel’s retaliatory attacks.
There are unconfirmed reports of an Australian hostage. Defence Minister Richard Marles would not provide more detail but he confirmed there were no Australian casualties at this stage.
“We will be pretty reticent about talking about any individual cases,” he told Seven’s Sunrise program on Tuesday.
About 10,000 Australians live in Israel and many more are tourists.
“So right now we are in the process of trying to assess the wellbeing of all of those Australians,” Mr Marles said.
There are also concerns about how to get Australians out of the country as the conflict escalates with commercial flights becoming limited.
The Australian government continued to monitor the flight situation but Tel Aviv airport remained open, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there were concerns about wider conflict in the region and the safety of Australians in the Middle East.
“The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade are working on a 24-hour basis to keep on top of the situation,” he told Adelaide radio station 5AA.
Hundreds of supporters of the Hamas attack have taken to the streets in Australia, angered by landmarks being illuminated in Israeli colours after the hardship the Palestinian people had suffered.
The loss of innocent lives “is something that is never to be celebrated”, Mr Albanese said.
“The events on the weekend deserve unequivocal condemnation. These were quite horrific scenes,” he said.
“This just provides for the murder of innocent civilians that does nothing to advance a political cause.”
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said Israel was entitled to defend itself against a terrorist attack and undertake a comprehensive counter-offensive to remove Hamas’ capabilities.
“In this case, Hamas as a terrorist organisation from being able to govern and co-ordinate or inspire such attacks in the future,” he told Sky News.
Senator Wong also urged restraint to ensure the protection of civilians.
“Australia should always in any conflict be saying we want civilian lives to be protected,” she told ABC radio.
But she didn’t weigh in on what restraint should be exercised by Tel Aviv when it comes to collective punishment after it announced it was cutting off food, water, electricity and gas from Gaza.
“It’s always very difficult from over here to make judgments about what security approach other countries take,” she said.
“We’ve said Israel has the right to defend itself. ‘
Palestinian political analyst Nour Odeh said cutting aid and punishing an entire community who did not carry out the attack was “bonkers”.
“Ordinary Palestinians are … certainly not deserving of being further punished on top of the miserable reality that they live in,” she told ABC radio.
“This is political posturing of the most sinister kind.”
The way to end the conflict was to address the root causes instead of bombing a civilian population, the Ramallah-based analyst said.
“People are being ruled against their will and they do not want to be ruled by a foreign military – it’s as simple as that.”
Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni said he couldn’t condone violence, but questioned why Palestinian voices were only heard when Israel was attacked but not when 250 of his people were killed this year.
“No building has been ever lit up in the Palestinian flag,” he told ABC TV.
“Israel has been at war with Palestinians for 75 years, all we want is what everybody else wants … we want to live freely.”
