Protestors resound calls for Gaza ceasefire at Newcastle Palestine rally

A crowd of demonstrators, led by the city's Palestine Action Group, marched bearing placards and chanting "free free Palestine" from the Newcastle Museum to Foreshore Park on Saturday afternoon, February 3, where a host of speakers decried the war in the Middle East.

Jarrod Moore, one of the organisers attached to the action group, led the march with a bullhorn and said the demonstration's purpose was to reiterate demands for a ceasefire.

"This demonstration, just like all the other demonstrations in Australia, is primarily about getting the government to call for a ceasefire, which they've already done, but there's a lot more to it," he said.

He was critical of Australia's involvement in lending personnel support - among a handful of other allied countries, including the UK and Canada - to US missile strikes on Yemeni rebels on January 11 and repeated recent allegations that Australia had been selling weapons to Israel.

The Australian government has faced criticism over its opaque defence exports industry since Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs Gaza and is designated a terrorist organisation by the UK and several other countries, launched a sudden attack on Israel on October 7 that sparked the current conflict and dire humanitarian crisis.

Israel is considered one of the world's top exporters of military equipment, and, despite criticism around a lack of transparency in defence exports locally, the federal government has been adamant that Australia has not supplied weapons to the Middle East nation since the conflict began.

Mr Moore nevertheless argued that Australia was "actively participating in this genocide" and said it was "the duty of everyone who lives in this country to protest our government's involvement".

More than 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been reported killed since the October attack, with 300 lives lost on average each day, according to data from Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.

Megan Clarke, a member of the local activism group Newcastle Mums for Palestine, which she said had been staging demonstrations twice weekly outside the office of federal Newcastle MP Sharon Claydon, said the protests were important to "continue to speak on behalf of the people and especially the children of Gaza".

Mr Moore said the demonstrators also aligned with the "Boycott, divestment, sanctions" movement, which has called for consumers to refuse to purchase from businesses and services with links to Israel.

The movement's Australian website has published a list of "complicit companies" with links to Israel, including Airbnb, manufacturer JCB, and TripAdvisor, among others.

Ms Clarke said many people had been feeling "overwhelmed" by the escalating conflict, and the demonstrations were a way of turning "that feeling into rage and rally and to keep going on because we acknowledge how privileged we are to live here".

"I definitely think there's more that we could be doing," she said. I know the government says we've got a seat at the table, but to me, that's not enough. We need to acknowledge our part to play in this."

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has said more than 1500 Australians have left Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories since the violence erupted again last year following decades of unrest that arguably began when Britain took control of the area of Palestine after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire around the time of the First World War.

The latest bout of violence has displaced more than 1.4 million people, and access to water and humanitarian supplies in Gaza and the Occupied Territories is extremely limited.

The Palestine Action Group Newcastle has staged a number of similar protests, including one in January, since the conflict began in October.