By Peter Hobson and Alasdair Pal
CANBERRA (Reuters) – Pro-Palestinian protesters scaled the roof of Australia’s Parliament in Canberra on Thursday and unfurled banners, one of them saying Palestine will be free, and accused Israel of war crimes, TV footage showed.
The footage showed four people dressed in dark clothing on the roof of the building, unfurling black banners, including one that said “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a common refrain of pro-Palestine protesters.
One of the protesters began a speech using a megaphone accusing the Israeli government of war crimes, an accusation it rejects.
“We will not forget, we will not forgive and we will continue to resist,” said the protester.
Several police officers and security guards advised people not to pass directly under the protest at the building’s main entrance, but there appeared to be no immediate attempt to remove the protesters, a Reuters witness said.
“This is a serious breach of Parliamentary security,” opposition Home Affairs spokesman James Paterson said in a post on social media platform X.
“The building was modified at great expense to prevent incursions like this. An investigation is needed.”
The war in Gaza began when Hamas gunmen invaded southern Israel on October 7, killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza, Israel says.
The offensive launched by Israel in retaliation killed almost 38,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and left the heavily urbanized coastal enclave in ruins.
Both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war, a UN inquiry concluded last month, saying Israel’s actions also constituted crimes against humanity due to the immense civilian losses.
(Reporting by Peter Hobson in Canberra and Alasdair Pal and Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Michael Perry)
