Key Points
- Penny Wong is visiting the Middle East for the first time as Australia's foreign affairs minister.
- Wong will become the most senior Australian politician to visit Israel since the Hamas-Israel war started.
- She will meet with her regional counterparts to discuss preventing the spread of the war.
The foreign minister is walking a diplomatic tightrope during her visit to Israel and the Middle East, with Jewish and Palestinian groups calling for her to take different stances during a diplomatic blitz of the region.
Penny Wong is travelling to Israel, Jordan, the occupied Palestinian territories, and the United Arab Emirates and will meet with regional counterparts.
Wong will also meet with the Israeli families of hostages and survivors of the as well as Palestinians impacted by Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.
Meeting the families and survivors of the attack would be important, the foreign minister said, but didn't address why she wouldn't visit the massacre sites.
"Australia is not a central player in the Middle East, but we are a respected voice and I'll be using our voice to advocate for a pathway out of this conflict," she told reporters in Adelaide before her departure on Monday.
Wong will arrive in Jordan on Monday, and travel to Israel on Tuesday.
She reiterated calls for Israel to respect international law and allow unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access so food, fuel, and medicine could reach Gazans.
A sustainable ceasefire also required Hamas to lay down arms and stop using Gaza as "a platform for terrorism", she said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the Hamas attack on innocent civilians and the devastation in Gaza since 7 October are "of concern to the global community".
"It's appropriate that Penny Wong travel ... to support the diplomatic efforts that will be required to have a durable peace," he told ABC radio.
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham says the program will deprive the minister of fully appreciating the horrors committed and "appears half-hearted" without a visit to the massacre sites.
Some Jewish groups in Australia have also expressed disappointment.
Visiting the sites would have been an "important show of solidarity", Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin branded it "insulting and deeply concerning" and "a serious error of judgment".
"It's essential to understanding the depth of evil that Israel faces and the necessity of its war to defeat Hamas," he said.
But another group, Jewish Australians for a Ceasefire, said the trip was an opportunity for Wong to "call for an end to this horror".
"Like so many people around the world, we continue to be shocked by what we are witnessing in Gaza," a spokesperson for the group said.
"Our Jewish values are incompatible with the unjustified cruelty and reckless disregard for human life and dignity that the Israeli government continues to show.
"It is increasingly clear that the Australian Jewish community does not unanimously support the actions of the Israeli government."
The Palestinian community wants Wong to hold Israel's government to account for its actions.
Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni pointed to Israel's "indiscriminate bombing of Palestinians in Gaza, its blocking of humanitarian aid, and its expansion of illegal settlements".
"Given she is not visiting the scenes of Israeli atrocities in Gaza, it is not appropriate for the foreign minister to visit a kibbutz," he told the Australian Associated Press.
"That some Zionist lobby groups are outraged about this reveals the extent of their sense of entitlement to deflect attention away from Israel's genocide in Gaza and to influence the way this government makes its foreign policy decisions."
Wong is also facing calls from within her party to take a tougher stance on Israeli settler violence in the occcupied Palestinian territories.
Labor MP Julian Hill has called for visa bans and making funding settlement activity illegal.
Australia condemned settler violence but wouldn't speculate on solutions, Wong said.
"Attacking Palestinians where they have a right to be is the wrong thing to do and certainly not conducive to ensuring there isn't escalation," she said, reiterating support for a two-state solution.
Wong's visit to Israel will be the first by a foreign minister since 2016.
It comes after Sunday marked 100 days since Hamas - designated a terrorist organisation by Australia - killed 1,200 Israelis and took 240 hostages during its 7 October attack on Israel.
Israel has since bombarded Gaza with air strikes which local authorities say have killed more than 23,000 people and displaced 1.9 million, or 85 per cent of the besieged strip's population.
