Ceasefire split
Australia has split with the US over a Gaza ceasefire, but the issue is also causing division within Labor caucus.
It was less than 24 hours ago when backbench MP Josh Burns made some of the strongest comments to date from a Labor parliamentarian on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“If Israel were to stop the pursuit of Hamas and Hamas were able to regroup, then there is a heightened risk of October 7 happening again, and no country would consider that,” Burns told The Australian after visiting the Kfar Aza kibbutz in southern Israel with a bipartisan group of Australian colleagues.
On the same day, cabinet minister Ed Husic said both sides should take “concrete steps” toward a ceasefire that sees all hostages released.
Husic, himself a Muslim, represents a Sydney electorate with large numbers of Muslim and Palestinian communities. And Burns, who is Jewish, represents the Melbourne electorate of Macnamara, which has the second-largest Jewish population in the country.
