Australia’s PM warns against pro-Palestine rally for anniversary of October 7 operation and Israeli war on Gaza

Canberra (Quds News Network)- Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has warned against a pro-Palestine rally scheduled for the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 operation and the start of Israel’s genocide war on Gaza.

On Wednesday, Albanese claimed that the planned vigil on October 7 would be “incredibly provocative” and “cause a great deal of distress”.

“Look, in a democracy, we allow for people, indeed, it’s important that people be able to express themselves peacefully. But October 7 will be one year since the largest number of deaths and murders – call it for what it is – of Jewish people, since the Holocaust,” Albanese said in an interview with Australia’s national broadcaster, referring to Hamas’s October 7 operation, “Al-Aqsa Flood.”

“I’ll be attending a vigil to commemorate that terrible day. And anything that looks like it’s a celebration of that, I think, would cause disharmony. We need to promote social cohesion in our multicultural nation.”

Albanese made his comments after police in New South Wales applied to the state’s top court to prohibit the event, billed as a candlelight vigil “mourning 12 months of genocide and terrorism”, as well as another pro-Palestinian rally scheduled for October 6.

NSW Police said in a statement on Tuesday that while it supported the right to peaceful assembly, it was “not satisfied that the protest can proceed safely”.

Organiser Palestine Action Group Sydney condemned the bid to ban the rallies as an “attack on fundamental democratic rights”.

“We have a right to demonstrate and we refuse to concede to political attacks aimed at detracting attention from the fact that the masses in this country opposes the Australian government’s complicity in this genocide,” the Sydney-based group said in a Facebook post.

“With Israel now escalating their war against Lebanon, the Palestine Action Group unequivocally opposes this attempt to silence protests calling for the Australian government to take action against Israel’s genocidal war.”

The bid to ban the rallies follows controversy over the display of the flag of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group during recent pro-Palestinian protests in Melbourne and Sydney.

In January, Australia’s center-left Labor Party government passed legislation banning Nazi motifs and symbols belonging to listed “terrorist organizations”, including Hezbollah and Hamas.

NSW Police on Wednesday said they had arrested a 19-year-old woman for allegedly carrying a Hezbollah flag at a pro-Palestinian march in Sydney on Sunday.