Australia may join more than a dozen other nations in recognising the state of Palestine.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators have marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia, calling for peace and aid deliveries in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where a humanitarian crisis of man-made starvation has been worsening as a result of Israel’s punishing blockade.
Pro-Palestinian protesters braved heavy winds and rain on Sunday to march across the bridge, chanting “Ceasefire Now” and “Free Palestine”. Some of those attending the march, which the organisers dubbed the “March for Humanity”, carried pots and pans as symbols of the forced starvation wracking Gaza.
The protest came less than a week after a joint statement by Australia and more than a dozen other nations expressed the “willingness or the positive consideration … to recognise the state of Palestine as an essential step towards the two-State solution”.
France, Britain and Canada have in recent weeks voiced, and in some cases qualified, intentions to diplomatically recognise a Palestinian state as international concern and criticism have grown over the hunger crisis in Gaza.
