Leaders strike a sombre tone commemorating the deaths of 1200 Israelis and the taking of 250 hostages by Hamas as mediators try to broker a ceasefire that sticks.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described October 7 as “a day of pain and terror for Jewish people around the world” that must be remembered to remind of the suffering endured.
“We must never forget the atrocities that were inflicted by Hamas,” he said.
“We also think of those still held hostage and join with our partners around the world in calling for the hostages to be returned immediately, and with dignity.”
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said the cross-border attack resonated beyond Israel.
“Two years ago the world was changed as one of the most horrific terrorist attacks in modern history was perpetrated against the people of Israel,” Ms Ley said on Tuesday.
“This was an attack on Israel, but it was an attack on the world too.”
She paid tribute to those killed including Australian Galit Carbone, whose brother Danny Majzner – a survivor of the October 7 attack – is expected to attend parliament.
Some 1200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage during a Hamas cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which triggered an Israeli military campaign that has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians.
Hamas officials and an Israeli delegation head to Egypt for renewed negotiations that have sparked hope for a ceasefire after US President Donald Trump announced a 20-point peace plan.
“I am told that the first phase should be completed this week, and I am asking everyone to MOVE FAST,” Mr Trump said in a social media post.
The prime minister welcomed Mr Trump’s plan, saying Australia was working to “see a just and lasting peace in the Middle East”.
Ms Ley also lambasted some protesters chanting anti-Semitic slogans at the steps of the Sydney Opera House two years ago, hours after the cross-border attack.
Pro-Palestine demonstration organisers are contesting police refusal – for public safety reasons of their planned protest at the globally recognised landmark in the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday.
At a vigil held on Monday in Sydney’s city centre, academic Peter Slezak said his experience as the son of Holocaust survivors informed his solidarity with Palestinians.
“What is called anti-Semitism is really justified moral outrage about what Israel is doing and in the name of Jews,” he told a crowd of hundreds.
Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubinstein said the past two years had weighed heavily on the Jewish community in Australia and around the world.
“Even if the hostages are released, the war ends, and the Hamas threat is decisively disarmed, the Jewish experience can never return to what it was like before October 7, 2023,” he said.
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