Payman, who represents the state of Western Australia, voted at the end of June in support of a motion put forward by the Greens recognising Palestine, going against the will of the Labor party and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“We have all seen the bloodied images of young children losing limbs, being amputated without anaesthetic, and starving as Israel continues its onslaught, livestreamed across the world,” Payman said in her Thursday news conference.
Payman, who was born in Afghanistan and arrived in Australia as an infant, said that her own personal history had inspired her choice to not back down on the Palestinian issue, despite pressure from party leaders.
Also read: Hezbollah fires 200 rockets towards Israel, Major Galea dead
“My family did not flee from a war-torn country to come here as refugees for me to remain silent when I see atrocities inflicted on innocent people,” she said.
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s Hezbollah said that it has launched more than 200 rockets and drones targeting Israeli military positions, a day after its senior commander Muhammad Nimah Nasser was killed in an Israeli attack, as reported by Al Jazeerah.
Hezbollah launched some 200 rockets and 20 drones at northern Israel in response to the killing of its third senior commander since the start of the war on Gaza.
The Israeli military has confirmed that Major Itay Galea, a 38-year-old reservist, has been killed in the Hezbollah rocket barrage on northern Israel and Golan Heights that the group says was launched to avenge its assassinated commander, Muhammad Nimah Nasser.
Galea was a deputy company commander in the Yiftah Reserve Armoured Brigade’s Unit 8679. The Israeli military said that Galea was killed “fighting in the north”, although some reports had earlier indicated he was killed in the Golan Heights, the illegally occupied Syrian land that Israel has unilaterally annexed.
Also read: In UK polls, voters seek candidates who care about Gaza
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said that Israeli fighter jets had been targeted the north of the enclave in particular.
Abu Azzoum said that two schools housing displaced people had been among the locations hit in the attacks.
Four Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a residential home in the centre of Gaza city, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.
The Norwegian Foreign Ministry has called on Israel to reverse the largest illegal confiscation of Palestinian lands since the 1993 Oslo Accord.
Israel has approved the appropriation of 12.7sq km (4.9sq miles) of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank where about 6,000 housing units for Israeli settlers are to be constructed.
“Israel’s long-held policy of dispossession, land confiscation and establishing illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, undermines our collective efforts to realise a two-state solution and a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” Norway’s Foreign Ministry said.
“Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, and they pose a significant threat to peace and security in the region.”
The Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995 were negotiated in the Norwegian capital and agreed between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. They led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority and a degree of self-government in the West Bank and Gaza.
