Published on Monday 24, March 2025
Tuesday 18 March 2025
Inner Melbourne Community Legal (IMCL) joins calls by legal organisations, human rights experts, Aboriginal-controlled community organisations, NGOs, and communities for a permanent ceasefire and a just political solution in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. This includes the release of all hostages and political prisoners being held by Hamas and Israel and an end to all violence and human rights abuses.
IMCL welcomes the fragile ceasefire agreement which came into effect on 19 January 2025. But this is not enough. Despite the International Court of Justice ruling that found there was a ‘real and imminent risk of the Israeli government causing irreparable harm to the right of Palestinians to be protected from genocide’, the Australian Government has not imposed an arms embargo on Israel nor ended contracts with companies manufacturing weapons that are being used by Israel in its assault on Gaza and the West Bank.
In March 2024, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories reported that there were reasonable grounds to believe that the Israeli Government was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
As a party to the Genocide Convention, Australia has a legal obligation to take all reasonable measures to prevent genocide wherever it may occur. As a civil society organisation, IMCL has a role to play in ensuring that the Australian Government complies with its human rights obligations.
IMCL calls on the Australian Government to place diplomatic pressure on the Israeli Government and Hamas to abide by the ceasefire agreement in its entirety and immediately end all violence and human rights abuses.
As an organisation fighting for the elimination of unjust and racialised systems and practices, we condemn the Israeli tactic of mass arrests and hyper-incarceration as a technique to extinguish Palestinian resistance and Palestinian civic and cultural life.
Israel is currently detaining thousands of political prisoners from the occupied territories, many of whom have been arrested in raids since 7 October 2023. Many are held without access to fair legal processes and are subject to institutional neglect.
Even those convicted were tried in military courts where the conviction rate is 99% for alleged crimes that, in many cases, amount to resisting unlawful occupation through acts like throwing stones or being members of banned political parties.
IMCL condemns all acts of violence against civilians. We condemn the abhorrent rise of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of racism, prejudice and bigotry in our communities.
We join the Human Rights Law Centre and other international and human rights law experts, in calling on the Australian Government to do everything within its power to secure a permanent ceasefire and to prevent genocide and war crimes in Palestine, including by:
- Applying diplomatic pressure on the Israeli Government to cease all acts of violence in Gaza and the West Bank
- Ensuring full accountability for anyone responsible for breaches of international law or the commission of war crimes
- Immediately suspending all military exports and other military assistance to the Israeli Government, including terminating any contracts with the Israeli Defense Force and related contractors
- Providing safe passage and settlement in Australia to those fleeing the violence, including full economic and social rights to support them to survive and heal
Our work as lawyers, community development workers and advocates for social and political change is meaningless if we do not act in solidarity with Palestinians and activists fighting for change in other places.
When our own governments, and corporations operating and making profits in the Australian economic and legal system, are complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity, we all have a responsibility to speak up.
Note: This statement was approved prior to the resumption of conflict and the end of the ceasefire on 18 March 2025.