Israel is tightening the noose around Gaza: it is starving northern Gaza, invading refugee camps like Jabalia and ramping up its bombing of the besieged strip. This apocalypse follows the blueprint laid out by the “Generals’ Plan”. Its author, retired General Giora Eiland, said any civilians left in Gaza should be seen as “legitimate military targets”. The bombardment of Kamal Adwan Hospital, the last partially functioning hospital in northern Gaza, makes clear that Israel’s strategy remains one of unbridled terror. 
Israel is also obliterating any remaining lifelines for the Palestinians. It has banned UNRWA, the United Nation Relief and Work Agency, and withdrawn from a 1967 agreement allowing the agency to work in the Occupied Territories. UNRWA aid has been a thin line of protection from the total collapse of food and water supplies in Gaza; its banning is tantamount to a death sentence for many Palestinians. 
Western leaders have offered toothless criticisms of the ban. Foreign Minister Penny Wong took to X to opine: “UNRWA does life-saving work. Australia opposes the Israeli Knesset’s decision to severely restrict UNRWA’s work”.
Yet, Israel can flout international law and attack UN aid institutions precisely because of the unceasing support it receives from Western governments. In January this year, over a dozen countries including the US and Australia suspended funding to UNRWA in the middle of the genocide. The decision was justified with flimsy accusations against the body presented by Israel. Penny Wong suspended funding while admitting to the ABC that she did “not yet have all the evidence to hand” when making the decision. Western military, financial and diplomatic support continues to flow to Israel.
The Israeli military has also attacked UN bases in Lebanon. This was criticised by the West, but with no serious repercussions. 
UN aid services are powerless when pitted against the might of the Israeli military. International law is, once again, incapable of taming the crimes of imperialism.

Owen Marsden-Readford

Israel bans UNRWA while laying siege to Gaza

Around 200 students attended a special general meeting at the University of Wollongong on 4 September to consider a motion calling on the university to cut all ties with Israel and any company that supplies the Israeli military. The meeting overwhelmingly supported the motion, with only a handful of students voting against it. 
The meeting was lively, students repeatedly breaking into chants of “Free Palestine!”, but it was orderly. Despite having the opportunity, no one spoke against the motion. 
The socialist who moved the motion, Megan Guy, said after the meeting: “For eleven months, our university has attempted to normalise a genocide and get students to accept its relations with Israel. The turnout is a major achievement in the history of student activism at this campus and a strong display of pro-Palestine sentiment among students”.
The meeting was the largest activist event on campus since the marriage equality campaign of 2017, and the latest in a wave of special general meetings happening across Australian campuses. 
Like almost every university in Australia, Wollongong has links with Israel. University management claims that all “<a href="https://www.uow.edu.au/media/2024/uow-supports-free-speech.php#:~:text=We%20strongly%20support%20free%20speech,or%20any%20form%20of%20discrimination.">potential partnerships</a> are evaluated at length, not only for alignment to the university’s strategic goals but also how they align with our values”. These values seem to include supporting war crimes. Through the Defence Materials Technology Centre, the university collaborates with Thales—one of the military suppliers profiting from Israel’s genocide. 
The university also partners with Bisalloy Steel. A long-running local campaign targeting Bisalloy has exposed the role steel made in the Illawarra plays in Israel’s military. The so-called advanced steel produced here coats IDF tanks and armoured personnel carriers. The research needed to produce the steel is done at the University of Wollongong. 
The university treated the special general meeting with hostility. Cleaning staff were instructed to tear down posters advertising the meeting, even on the few noticeboards where political posters are allowed. When challenged, a member of cleaning management told students, “If you care about Gaza so much, why don’t you just go there?” 
During the Gaza solidarity encampment organised on campus last semester, the university threatened to discipline student activists for using the word “intifada” and the phrase “from the river to the sea”, both well-established slogans of the movement for Palestinian liberation. Even chalking the word “colonised” was in breach of anti-vilification laws according to university management, which, if true, means the university should expect to be in some legal hot water over its acknowledgement of country. 
University management is yet to respond to students’ demands. But there is no question: the campaign will not stop until all ties with Israel are severed and complicity in genocide ended.

Wollongong students vote to support Palestine

The far right has tried and failed to stop a drag story time event from taking place in Wollongong. With less than a week’s notice, more than 100 people rallied on Saturday 24 June to successfully defend the event.
The bigots were met by protesters on the front steps of the Thirroul library, who chanted: “Drag queens are welcome, fascists are not!” The protesters cheered on library staff and attendees who refused to cancel the event. 
The far right was totally outnumbered. Only a few sorry handfuls of neo-Nazis (wearing 88 “Heil Hitler” shirts) and other bigots showed up. Some performed the Hitler salute while holding a banner saying “Stop Pedo Child Groomer”. These are supposedly the “concerned parents” we hear so much about. They were forced onto the road opposite the library. Passersby repeatedly berated them, and drivers gave them the finger. 
In the week leading up to the story time, librarians and the council received abuse and threats, but held firm. A <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/councils-cancel-lgbt-events-are-helping-fascists-win-it-has-stop">number of other councils</a> have cancelled similar events because of pressure from the far right. All this does is embolden the bigots and their anti-LGBTI campaigning. What will be cancelled next?
Saturday’s protest was a reminder of why we need to stand up to the far right. Rather than progressives and the LGBTI community being demoralised that another drag story time had been cancelled, it was the right who was defeated. Protesting to defend the story time sent a message of solidarity and emboldened our side to continue standing up for LGBTI rights. 
Earlier this month in Perth, a similar rally of more than 400 LGBTI rights activists and supporters defended a drag story time against far-right bigots. More of this is needed. Majority opinion is on the side of LGBTI rights. Publicly and decisively outnumbering the far-right minority when it mobilises is how we can put the bigots back in their place.

Wollongong defends drag story time

Thousands of anti-war activists and trade unionists marched through Port Kembla in the NSW Illawarra region demanding peace not war on Saturday 6 May. The South Coast May Day Committee held its annual rally in Port Kembla to oppose any plans to house the AUKUS nuclear submarine base in the harbour just south of Wollongong. A nuclear submarine base would be a disaster for people in the area and represents another escalatory step towards a war with China. 
A contingent from Wollongong Against War and Nukes (WAWAN) marched alongside broader activist networks. “The people of Wollongong know how to fight nuclear and the war industry”, said WAWAN activist Alexander Brown in a speech. Working class anti-war activism has a long history in the Illawarra. In the 1930s, wharfies in Port Kembla harbour went on strike to oppose pig iron being shipped to Japan for military use. When anti-Vietnam war activist Lou Christofides was imprisoned in 1969 for refusing to register for the draft, wharfies here struck demanding his release. 
“We must demand that the government rule out the subs base here in Port Kembla, anywhere on the eastern seaboard and tear up the AUKUS agreement”, Alexander said.
Unions ranging from the Maritime Union of Australia to the NSW Teachers Federation and the Australian Services Unions marched in the demonstration. Allen Hicks, national secretary of the Electrical Trades Union, spoke to recommit the union to its policy of “opposition to the mining and export of uranium and the use of nuclear fuel”.
Several speakers attacked the cost of the nuclear submarines. The Labor government is planning to spend $368 billion on weapons of mass destruction whilst claiming that there’s not enough money to offer serious cost-of-living relief. And the cost could rise even higher, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-28/defence-reveals-50-per-cent-contingency-for-cost-overruns-inside/102275806">potentially towards half a trillion dollars</a>. (It would cost only $100 billion to <a href="https://www.leadingedgeenergy.com.au/blog/decarbonise-australia-energy-grid/#:~:text=%24100%20billion%20investment%20is%20needed%20to%20decarbonise%20Australia's%20energy%20grid&amp;text=Share%20now%3A&amp;text=Research%20by%20Deloitte%20Access%20Economics,needed%20to%20decarbonise%20the%20grid.">fully transition to a renewable energy grid</a>.) 
 “They want to conscript our region into their war machine, but we will not have a bar of it”, Arthur Rorris, secretary of the South Coast Labour Council, insisted in another rally speech. With the mainstream press lining up to support the Labor government’s war drive, opposition from the trade union movement is important. It was positive to see a large rally organised by the unions against the submarine base. 
Opinion polls demonstrate that the majority of people <a href="https://poll.lowyinstitute.org/charts/military-conflict-between-china-and-united-states/">reject a potential war with China</a>. More protests and union opposition, in the Illawarra and beyond, will be vital to turn this sentiment into an anti-war movement in the future.

Port Kembla May Day march opposes AUKUS

Last year, as part of the AUKUS pact, Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison <a href="https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/media-releases/2022-03-07/australia-build-additional-submarine-base">announced plans for a new submarine</a> base on Australia’s east coast. The Labor government that succeeded Morrison’s has said it will stick with this plan.
There is increasing speculation that the site for the base will be Port Kembla, a southern suburb of Wollongong in the Illawarra region of the NSW south coast. While Labor insiders <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-04/east-coast-nuclear-submarine-base-decision-after-next-election/102181528">have claimed</a> a final decision won’t be made until after the next federal election, the ABC <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-12/port-kembla-firms-as-site-for-new-submarine-base/102080154">recently reported</a> that, according to “defence, government and industry figures”, Port Kembla “is now the strongly favoured option” for its deep port and proximity to other military bases and Australia’s lone nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights.
The plan has <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-16/port-kembla-nuclear-submarine-defence-business-community/102098852">received support from some local business figures</a>, and the University of Wollongong is deepening its already extensive ties with the military-industrial complex in anticipation. Among the wider community, however, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/17/wollongong-residents-react-angrily-to-reports-port-kembla-will-be-east-coast-base-for-aukus-subs">opposition is growing</a>.
Several unions have already come out against the proposed base. The New South Wales Teachers Federation passed a motion at its March council meeting:
“Continuing reports that Port Kembla is being considered as the site for a nuclear submarine base is of deep concern for our public education communities. While governments appear ever ready to commit huge amounts of public revenue on military expenditure there remains a serious underfunding of public pre-schools, public schools, TAFE and higher education, and other areas of the public sector.”
The Kiama council also passed a motion opposing a submarine base at Port Kembla. Even the Dapto and Port Kembla branches of the Labor Party have passed oppositional motions. Socialist students in the Wollongong Undergraduate Students’ Association have <a href="https://www.facebook.com/UOWstudentunion/posts/pfbid02mPYZsL7YNke1eufZp7n2yyzNQ4nUA37x4k7vNtKfL9nt9S4SX1CSRvcBnMMxyAqpl">passed motions</a> opposing the nuclear submarines, the AUKUS pact and the Australian government’s war drive.
Importantly, the South Coast Labour Council has called for this year’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/162261140063412">May Day rally</a> to be held in Port Kembla on Saturday, 6 May, to oppose the planned base. Council secretary Arthur Rorris told the Sydney Morning Herald, “If they want to turn our harbour into a nuclear parking lot, we will fight them tooth and nail”. There will even be a solidarity action held in San Francisco outside the Australian consulate. 
Wollongong Against War and Nukes (WAWAN)—a campaign group formed last year—has held a series of protests against AUKUS. The most recent, on 4 April, drew more than 80 people in opposition to the Illawarra Defence Industry Conference—a gathering of war hawks and military profiteers.
Socialist and WAWAN activist Luke Hocking said in a speech at the protest, “If we are all committed to building this movement ... then we can make something that can physically get in the way of their plans. And the more of us there are, the better we will be able to do that”. WAWAN will be holding a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/3645964832298518/?ref=newsfeed">community forum</a> in Port Kembla on Saturday, 29 April, and is planning further protests.
The Illawarra has a proud <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/standing-against-war-and-nuclear-catastrophe-lessons-port-kembla">history of working-class anti-imperialism</a>. We should look to these traditions as we set out to build resistance to the planned submarine base, the AUKUS pact and the militarism of the Australian ruling class and its US and British allies.

Israel bans UNRWA while laying siege to Gaza

Wollongong students vote to support Palestine

Wollongong defends drag story time

Port Kembla May Day march opposes AUKUS

Opposition grows to nuclear submarines in Port Kembla

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