By Amani Haydar with Dr Paula Abood, Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, Sara Saleh, and others
This petition is an active document, and is updated regularly to accurately represent statistics and signatories.
As women’s health and safety workers, trauma-informed professionals, lived experience advocates, educators, and anti-violence campaigners, we urge the Australian Government to call for an immediate ceasefire, an end to the bombardment of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and an end to Israeli apartheid and military occupation of the people of Palestine.
Over the past 47 days, Israel’s genocidal assault on the people of Gaza has resulted in the killing of over 13,000 Palestinians, more than one third of whom are children. Over 24,158 Palestinians have been injured, and thousands upon thousands are buried under rubble. Others cannot be identified due to the dismembering effects of Israel’s weapons of mass destruction. Over 60,000 residential units have been destroyed, in addition to hundreds of targeted precision attacks on hospitals, primary care clinics, and other medical facilities, including ambulances, 90 education facilities including schools and universities, and 49 media offices.
Israeli government officials have publicly expressed genocidal intent, labelling Palestinians 'human animals' and 'the children of darkness', and calling for the complete destruction and erasure of Gaza. The people in Gaza, who have been held hostage by Israel’s devastating blockade for 16 years, are being starved of food, water, electricity, and fuel. These expressions and actions are evidence of Israel’s racist ideology, law, policies, and practices against Palestinians that operate within a violent system of apartheid.
Itimad Abu Ward, a midwife employed by the World Health Organisation in Gaza, has described the assault on Gaza as a ‘health, environmental and social disaster’. We note the following facts which provide details of the particular impact this has had on girls and women:
Over 493,000 women and girls have been displaced from their homes within the Gaza strip. Temporary shelters including schools and refugee camps are being targeted.
50,000 pregnant women, including 5,500 expected to deliver within the next month, do not have access to vital healthcare, with electricity and supplies running out at all hospitals across Gaza.
Doctors report seeing more birth complications than ever, including increased cases of placental abruption. Hysterectomies are being performed in circumstances where they would not otherwise, due to a lack of blood for transfusions.
Women are delivering babies in hospitals where supplies are depleted. Caesareans are being performed without anaesthetic. Children are undergoing surgery without anaesthesia.
There is a history of sexual violence against Palestinian women that dates back to the 1948 Nakba up to the present, including physical and sexual violence against incarcerated Palestinian women.
Women in Gaza are reporting a lack of access to sanitary products and clean water for personal hygiene, with some having to resort to taking birth control pills to stop their menstrual cycle. We note that as supplies run short, women will also cease to have access to contraception.
Babies are being delivered posthumously from the bodies of pregnant women who have been killed in Israel’s indiscriminate attacks. Reports indicate that one child is being killed every five minutes.
A new acronym is being used by medics in Gaza: WCNSF — Wounded Child, No Surviving Family. In the words of British doctor Ghassan Abu Sittah, working in Gaza City, 'There is no lonelier place in this universe than around the bed of a wounded child who has no more family to look after them.'
Many of the above points are longstanding and predate 7 October 2023. UNICEF data prior to October 2023 indicated that 25% of pregnant women in Palestine were considered high risk, and that more than one Palestinian child was killed per week throughout all of Palestine. Palestinian women are systemically targeted as a way of dehumanising the Palestinian population, with Palestinian babies being described as ‘terrorists’ before they are born. We recognise that the current violence sits within a long history of settler colonial violence and dispossession.
As anti-racist feminists, we see the connections between gender oppression and state violence. Many of us work in multicultural communities, providing services to CALD and refugee women within a social model of health and human rights framework. Many of us campaign against interpersonal abuse and domestic violence. We recognise the many parallels between interpersonal abuse and systemic abuse, including the strategies used by the state to control and oppress large populations. We recognise the ways in which Israeli officials are engaging in denialism, gaslighting, and a calculated reversal of victim and offender in order to evade accountability.
Many of us have made a commitment to anti-racism, intersectionality, and survivor-led practice. We stand in solidarity with the Arab and Palestinian women with whom we work, and to whom we provide services and support. We acknowledge the silencing they are experiencing. We recognise that our fellow advocates, colleagues, and clients include women who are survivors of Israeli aggression and who have lived experience of war crimes, dispossession and military occupation.
Writing for Al Jazeera, Sahar Aziz, Professor of Law and Chancellor's Social Justice Scholar at Rutgers Law School notes, ‘Muslim women’s civic and political engagement is almost always met with attacks on their own safety, defamation of their character, and threats to their employment — all aimed at silencing their voices.’ We stand in solidarity with Muslim and Arab women in our communities in the face of ongoing Islamophobic racism and silencing in the workplace, and recognise that the brunt of this aggression is borne by women who are visibly Muslim. We also recognise that the dehumanisation of men and boys is part of Israel’s campaign to frame Palestinians as ‘barbaric’ and 'violent’. We reject these racist representations that work in the service of neo-colonialism and the suppression of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
As part of our commitment to anti-colonial, intersectional feminist practice, we stand against the debasing of feminism in service of imperialism. We recognise the ways in which feminism has been historically weaponised to justify military incursions and invasions. We recognise the ways in which ‘purple-washing’ - presenting something as feminist when it is not - and imperialist language have been deployed to prop up racist Zionist narratives, including in liberal feminist spaces. We recognise the ways in which feminism has been historically weaponised to justify military incursions and invasions. We reject the use of the oppressor’s language, frameworks, discourses, and equivocations. Ending state sanctioned violence and oppression is not a footnote to our feminist work in dismantling patriarchy and settler colonialism; it is our urgent goal.
We stand in solidarity with our Palestinian sisters in Gaza and Arab women in our communities by calling for an immediate ceasefire and the unfettered delivery and provision of food, water, power, and medical supplies to Gaza. Stopping the genocide in Gaza is of utmost urgency and demands our attention as well as our action. We demand an end to the siege on Gaza, an end to Israeli apartheid, and an end to the occupation. Ongoing militarism, systemic racial discrimination, ongoing expropriation of Indigenous land, mass arrests, and settler-paramilitary violence are the very root causes of violence: unless they are addressed, there can be no lasting peace.
We call on all feminists to affirm their commitment to anti-colonial, anti-racist and intersectional feminist principles and practice by standing with Palestinian women, whose rights, dignity, and political aspirations have been violated for 75 years. We make this call as we witness attempts to ban and silence all forms of solidarity with the Palestinian people. We urge our colleagues to speak out and take action in the face of this long-standing injustice.
We believe the struggle for Palestinian liberation is at the intersection of every social justice movement, and is a true test of our commitment to freedom and justice for all people.
Signatories
Dr Amrit Versha/Community Worker
Rukhshana Sarwar Project officer at IWSA
Geneve O'Connor - Community Development Worker
Rosanna Barbero
Tina kordrostami T.
Vi T. Pham, community worker
Hala Abdelnour, CEO and Founder, Institute of non-violence
Naima Ibrahim - Writer
Dr Sarah Ayoub, Author and Academic
Kathryn Joy, Family Violence researcher
Louise Cox, visual artist
Moones Mansoubi, Community Cultural Development Coordinator
Amani Haydar - Author & victim-survivor advocate for Women's Health and Safety
Kyle, community organiser
Amanda Morgan, Yorta Yorta woman and DSFV Survivor Advocate, Activist and Researcher
Zahie El hajj (Social worker, conscious parent counsellor and founder of Mindful Parenting
Grace Tame, CEO, The Grace Tame Foundation
Chelsea Watego, Director, Institute of Collaborative Race Research Jessica Hallagan Diana Sayed, International Human Rights Lawyer/CEO Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human RightsAmy McQuire, Darumbal journalist, QUT
Clementine Ford, writer
Maha Krayem Abdo OAM, CEO Muslim Women Australia (MWA)
Madison Griffiths, Author Hana Assafiri OAM
Sarah Morsi / counsellor and community worker
Gayatri Nair
Yasmin Khan - Director, The Bangle Foundation
Renata Field, advocate
Dr Kate Hammond, Australian Muslim Women's Centre for Human Rights
Nilab Hamidi, Programs Coordinator - The Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights
Susan Rajendran, lawyer & Project Manager Carly Findlay OAM - writer, speaker, appearance activist, arts worker
Eliza Hull (Journalist, Disability Advocate, Writer)
Sarah Malik - writer
Sasha Brown
Cathy Oddie. DFSV lived experience consultant
Kim Sattler- retired community worker and secular Jewish woman
Danielle Binks, author, teacher and literary agent Sally Stevenson AM, Wollongong Citizen of the Year 2023
Renay Yarnold, Sovereign Blak
Nesreen General Manager
Roxanne Moore, Noongar lawyer, campaigner & activist
Alicia Gardiner , Actor Dani Lou, arts worker
Emma Steele
Ezra Thomas, Senior Policy Advisor, Our Watch
Astrid Edwards, academic and teacher
Nemat Kharboutli - Linking Hearts Service Manager - Muslim Women Australia
Karla McGrady, Portfolio Manager
Yvonne Lay, Manager Inclusion & Cultural Safety Ramona Sen Gupta
Khadija Gbla, Human Rights Activist
Amna Karra-Hassan
Brooke Scobie - Writer & Community Worker
Fiona R
Priyanka Bromhead; we are the mainstream
Karen Pickering, writer and organiser
Natasha Reid Dr Emma Whatman, Lecturer & researcher in Gender Studies @ the University of Melbourne
Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, Future Fellow, Macquarie University
Ellen Pollock, Social worker, Port Stephens family and neighbourhood services
Susan Pollock, Manager, Port Stephens Family and Neighbourhood Services
Andrew Norris Sarah Quinlan social work
Yumiko Kadota, Doctor & DV survivor-advocate
Nadine Chemali, Writer, Arts Worker
Tatyana SLSO
Abigail Boyd, Greens NSW MP
Dr Anisa Buckley, Educator, Advocate, Academic
Dr Kiran Rahim, Paediatrician, London
Kristine Ziwica, Journalist and Author
Therese Wolfe /Frontline support/Women’s Health NSW
Emma Kefford, Primary School teacher
Dans Bain. Artist.
Ella Benore Rowe, Owner of Elvies Studios
Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts, Lawyer & advocate for human rights
Shakira Hussein
Dr Rebecca Howe, Education Programs Coordinator the Australian Centre, University of Melbourne Mariah Calman, National Learning Producer
Arlia Fleming, CEO
Katherine Nelson, Program Manager
Riley Brooke, Policy & Communications Coordinator, Community Legal Centres Australia
Anastasia C, policy officer
Marwa Charmand Nicole Barakat, educator and community arts facilitator
Phoebe Turner-Myatt
Dr Monica Campo , Senior Research Officer
Belinda O’Connor, primary prevention worker
Rose Wilson-Harrison
Anaum Zahid, High School Teacher and Mother
Pauline McLoughlin, Senior Project Officer
Dr Peta Malins, Senior Lecturer Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT University
Inez Winters - Therapist/Social Worker/Radio Host
Dr Sherene Idriss, Sociologist
Julia Bennett, Social Worker/Family Violence Coronial Investigator
Sangwon Lee, Project Officer
Dr Polly Bennett, Academic
Tan Safi, Writer/Director
Eddie Abd, Arts Worker
Dr Jess Hardley
Betul Tuna, Executive Officer
Mrs Maree Dekretser/ mother, grandmother
Adrian Mouhajer, Mx
Mariam Mourad CEO Bankstown Women’s Health Centre and Fairfield Womens Health Service
Anna Heldorf, Melbourne
Lucy Peckham, Prevention Practice Advisor
Yana Grant
Mark Taylor, Australian Services Union Finn N, Housing Pathways Coordinator
Ellen McGregor, Family Violence Specialist & Advocate
Sharnee curran
Rachel zbukvic, social worker Aisha aboulfadil
Matilda M, Family Violence Team Leader (Refuge)Mi Nguyen, Senior Project Officer
Mariam Mgoter/ Community project worker
Emma Waheed, leadership program manager
Nicola Purcell, Specialist Family Violence Practitioner Ada Conroy, Counsellor
Jazz Money, poet, Wiradjuri nation
Claire McNamara, advocate and paramedic
Ali Schnabel - Clinical Psychologist, Counsellor/Advocate at the Northern Centre Against Sexual Assault
Salwa albaz Executive Officer /Cumberland Women's Health centre
Jet Hunt, Community Worker Students for Palestine Wollongong
Jessica McMeniman - Coordinator Zay Canters, MxSarah Bellamy, Social Worker
Claire Parfitt, Lecturer, University of Sydney
Dr. Leticia Funston
Riikka Prattes, PhD, research fellow
Billee McGinley, Peace Activists and Organiser
Rahima Hayes, Education & Public Programming
Dr Alexia Derbas, Sociologist Suki, climate campaigner
NADINE, COUNSELLOR/ADVOCATE
Alicia - Family Violence Practitioner
Zaineb
KARLI MUNN. / Disability Peer Support Worker
Teruni Jayawickrama
Sarmad Akkach, Medical Doctor Sarah Judd - sector development manager
Jessica Findling Associate Lecturer
Liz Ratcliffe, Family Violence Practice Development Advisor
Subhi Bora
Emma White, Secretary Regional Victorians of Colour
Sarah Coconis, Psychotherapist
Antoinette Lattouf, host, author, columnist
Keg de Souza
Dr. Gemma Hamilton, Senior Lecturer
Elaine Su-Hui, Educator
Brittany McCormack, Statewide Disability Inclusion Advisor
Kathryn Barron, doctor
Emily Corbett - victim/survivor advocate
Kaye Rigby-Sexual Assault Counsellor/Advocate
Tasha Weir, Diversity and Inclusion practitioner
Emily Morrice, Secondary School Teacher
Alasdair Henry, Lecturer, RMIT University, Australia
Anika Moore, Senior Policy Officer
Yumi Lee, CEO, Older Women's Network NSW
Dr Larissa Sandy, Assistant Professor in Criminology
Holly Duffy
Simone Van de Burgt
Geraldine Bilston, Domestic Violence Advocate
Mouna Elmir- project manager community services and PhD candidate
Ayah Wehbe- social researcher and community advocate
Briony O'Keeffe, Senior Policy Officer
Azja Kulpinska - Social worker Jennifer Trainor, Counselling Psychologist
Salma Abdul Hussein, UX Researcher
Phoenix Wolfe
Bella Gadsden, Social Worker
Megan Kelly, Digital Engagement AdvisorJen Broadhurst
Diana Rickard Peace and Justice Educator NTAnu Fox, Trauma Sensitive Yoga Facilitator, trauma informed disability Suport worker
Fatima Kourouche Health promotion
Joni Meenagh, Lecturer
Emma Stone, Counsellor and Social Worker
Anisha Gautam, Community Organiser
Kim, Policy Advisor in the Family Violence sector
Larissa Yong, Specialist Family Violence Practitioner
Stephanie Bell, Social WorkerSavannah Holliday - Social Worker
Chanel Keane social worker Matthew Stegh
Christiane Poulos, Social Worker
Jenny Fong, Social worker, Counsellor
Libby King, Phd candidate
Rola Rifai - Integrated Domestic and Family Violence Specialist
Michele Rousseau Mental Health Professional
Jane Kanizay - Board Chair River Nile School
Hannah Donnelly, Co-Artistic Director Utp
Jennifer Tuke Dyana Bidawid - Specialist Family Violence Practitioner
Jaguar Jonze, Artist/Activist
Jo Pall, teacher Jessie, Academic/Feminist
Jacinta Mancini, Family Violence Crisis Specialist
Fiona Vuong, Women's Health and Engagement Officer - Women's Health in the South East
Laura Riccardi, Health Promotion
Brianna Hoff, Community worker Tinonee Pym, Health Promotion Officer
Malkanthi Walton at Women's Community and Engagement Officer | WHISE
Anjali Walton - Daughter
Manisha Walton - Daughter
Sandra D'Urso Sheldon - Specialist Family Violence Practitioner
Jane Torney
Orla Doyle - senior coordinator
Caroline Dias
Louise Simms
Sarah MacWilliams, Counsellor Advocate
Alice Creevey, violence prevention practitioner
Hannah Thomas, Senior Policy Officer
Priscilla Dm
Tash Howson Gem Romuld, Director
Nadine Taylor
Elyce Sandri - Family Violence Social Worker
Tasmin Lewis, Occupational Therapist
Elise Imray Papineau, Doctor, Feminist Researcher
Cristina Cabrera-Ayers, intersectional feminist
Fearn B - Specialist Family Violence Case Manager
Sophia Nicolades, medical student and public health researcher
Dinah TooEman Al-Dasuqi, Women's Health Advocate/Cultural Consultant
Julia Earley, Senior Coordinator, Family Violence Prevention, Rainbow Health Australia
Catalina Labra Odde, migrant women's health advocate and researcher
Emily, Family Violence Crisis Specialist Bella - housing and homelessness support worker
Milo Peltier, Support worker and union member
Anna Wark, project worker Sara Ahmed, Independent Scholar Alicia Rodden (Mental Health Rehabilitation Clinician/Occupational Therapist)
Laura Sparks, Social Worker Simone van Hattem, Community Outreach
Lesly Zambrano, community worker and Access and inclusion advocate
Eleni Christou, Creative Producer
Amy Cutler Rose Pearce - Redress Support Worker (Open Place, Relationships Australia Victoria)
Sarah Abeysena, Service Design and Improvement Officer
Face sauvage Brigitta m, Family Violence Support Worker
Dr. Paula Abood, Educator / Community Worker
Dr Helen Barcham, Sociologist
Emma Pressman
Jasmine, student, feminist
Monique, Communications Officer, CPSU
Kathryn Aedy, Advocate
Joseph Van Buuren, Lecturer, RMIT
Charlotte Davies, Project Manager
Melalie Collie
Tasnia Alam Hannan - Co-Founder & COO at Arise Foundation | Lecturer at UNSW
Amy Woollams, social worker Emma Constantine, Head of Innovation (Family Violence)
Tania Furlong
Quynh Nguyen, Social worker
Rosalie Atie
Zoe Ross
Violeta Marticorena Politoff
Mary Lai, health tech worker
Lobna Yassine, Lecturer at the University of Sydney Ola Elhassan -social worker
Rebecca Hiscock, Associate Lecturer, RMIT University
Marla Donehue, Social Worker
Sara Mansour, Lawyer and Director at Bankstown Poetry Slam
Monique Wiseman Homeless Services Lead Lucy McGuirk (clinical psychologist)
Sarah Stevenson - Clinical Psychologist Dr Jessica Kean, Lecturer Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney
Natasha Shalala, Clinical Psychologist
Vahideh PVAW PROJECT OFFICER
Elizabeth Yared, Family Violence Practice Development
Rafael Mazzoldi
Megan Sharon Roussos
Sue Bowrey, solicitor
Amy Roache, Social Worker Sophie Rudolph, Senior Lecturer
Ms Jhan Leach, Executive Officer
Bron Watkins,
ms.Lexi Kelly, Social Worker
Linda Leman, Communications Officer AMWU NSW/ACT
Cherie Toivonen, Independent Researcher
Jyhene Kebsi,
Dr.Sian Chadfield, Disability Advocate
Amanda Wise, Professor of Sociology Katrina Patton
Erica Wastell Ella Longhurst / Policy and Research Officer
Courtney Wamala, social worker
Rebecca Sheehan, Senior Lecturer in History and Gender Studies
Regina Torres-Quiazon (Mother, Daughter, Wife and Women's Health Advocate)
Emma Hardley, PVAW Consultant
Monique Dam
Lisa Levis Manager
Sarah Hill
Spence Messih
DR Sealy
Jodee Mundy OAM, Artist Dan Goronszy, Creative Producer
L. Logge, Prevention of Violence against Women project officer
Lula Dembele, lived experience and feminist activist
Jasmine Harris, lawyer
Melati Lum (retired Prosecutor) Raqiya, Writer/Artist
Danielle Roubin
Natalie Shehata
Nadia Camus, Family Violence Worker
Palwesha Yusaf Project Coordinator Pacific CARE Australia
Tess Ó Broin (Slingshot Books)
Mohadesa - Feminist and Law StudentZeina Fares, Mother, sister, carer, support worker
Omaim Al-Baghdadi, Research Assistant
Katherine Hills-Vink, Feminst and Domestic, Family and Sexual violence specialist
Diane Barrera, Program Manager
Ellie Fisher (university student, writer, intersectional feminist)
Zenobia Ahmed, designer Lucy Small - co founder Equal Pay for Equal Play
Kate Leaney, Welcoming Australia Campaigns and Communications Manager
Sherona Parkinson
Zaynura Ruzehaji
Natalie Calleja, Graduate Researcher
Yusra Metwally, Solicitor & Swim Sisters Founder
Nicole YadeAdele Murdolo
Katrina Marson
Yumi Takahashi, Decolonial- Anti Racism Feminist Artist
Lizzie Blue, social worker
Sam Brhaspati Stott
sofiya, library officer
Khyaati Acharya, Primary Prevention Policy Advisor
Kate Travers, Social Worker, Team Coordinator, Yarrow Place Rape and Sexual Assault Service
Mell Chun, Journalist
Samantha watson - aod peer worker
Manel- Registered Nurse
Dr. Easkey Britton
Natasha Rumble
Morgyn Davis- Early Childhood Teacher
Tasnim Sammak, educator
Sabah Charif. Social worker.
Adrian Mouhajer, Mx/ Project Coordinator
Lilith angle Jennifer Norton, Social Worker
Natalia Figueroa Barroso / Writer
Hannah Fearnside - Senior Lawyer, Family Violence
Zoë McKewen Registered Midwife and Nurse
Michelle Abraham
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