The Greens welcome the ceasefire and exchange of Israeli and Palestinian hostages and hope that these are concrete steps towards peace with justice.
After two years of genocide and bloodshed, the international community must do all it can to ensure peace. The cessation of bombing and exchange of hostages is a move towards this. However, peace will only be enduring if there is justice, an end to the apartheid system and self-determination.
Senator David Shoebridge, the Greens spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, said: "Any moves to end the genocide in Gaza are welcome and now there is cautious optimism for the first time in years.
"This short moment of relief cannot hide the global responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the wholesale destruction of Gaza.
"This week's ceasefire and today's return of hostages show that at any stage in the last two years, peace was possible, but it required the United States and those that follow its lead, including Australia, to force Israel to the table.
"A genocide on this scale took global co-operation from international arms manufacturers together with diplomatic cover for Israel's government and arms industry. Australia was a player in all of this, which is a permanent stain on the Albanese government's record.
"Millions of Australians, and billions around the world, have now had a brutal first-hand lesson in how a US-dominated world works, whether it is their government's involvement in weapons platforms like the F-35 fighter jet, or empty rhetoric about an 'international rules-based order.'
"The foreign policy of the two major parties has lost legitimacy, it has made the world a less safe and less fair place. There must be a new course, one independent from a US-led foreign policy that saw such a devastating scale of bloodshed.
"We owe the Palestinian survivors of this unspeakable genocide truth, compassion and justice and that will require a fresh global commitment to a Free Palestine and the urgent enforcement of the Genocide Convention.
"Until there is a just and lasting peace across Israel and Palestine, meaning an end to the genocide, dismantling of the apartheid system and respect for self-determination, all countries are still obligated to act."
