Canberra:

Six former Prime Ministers of Australia called for an “unconditional release of all the hostages taken by Hamas.” Though they nodded in support of Israel’s “legitimate objective of defeating” Hamas in a statement released on Monday, the politicians cautioned that it must be “accompanied by the support and protection for the civilian population of Gaza.” The joint statement was issued by former Prime Ministers John Howard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

The former heads of the country strongly condemned Hamas for its attack on Israel on October 7. They pointed out that the attacks that killed thousands of innocent civilians was the single largest massacre since the Jewish holocaust and added that the act of terror “was comparable to that of ISIS”.

They alleged that Hamas “have no more interest in the safety of Palestinians than they do of Israelis”, and their intention was to provoke Israel into launching a counter-attack that would result in several casualties. In the statement, they called for “a sustained humanitarian access" to provide aid to “innocent Palestinians.” They also stated that the mission of Hamas is to promote hatred of Israelities, Jews, Muslims, and Palestinians and through these attacks they sought to “horrify and intimidate people”, thereby waiving the faith of Israelities in their country’s technology, military and government.

In the context of the rising fear of anti-Jewish hatred in the country, they said, “Our Australian Jewish community, directly affected by the terrible crimes of Hamas, not only has to endure the loss and suffering of their families in Israel, but now sees these events being used by some to spread ancient hatreds which have inflicted so much suffering on the Jewish people for thousands of years.”

Upon the belief that they were speaking for the vast majority of Australians they stated that they were standing in solidarity “with Jewish Australians at this time”. To this they added, “We stand too with the Australian Palestinian community whose families are dying and suffering in this terrible conflict.”

A multicultural country like Australia is successful because of the Australian values its people share and the mutual respect they have for their diversity of cultures and faiths, hence there is no place for racial or religious hatred in Australia, said the former PMs in the joint statement.