Pine Gap Blockade

The entrance to satellite surveillance facility Pine Gap, has been shut down this morning by a community protest, disrupting the facility’s role in the ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, perpetrated by the Israeli government and military, and its allies, the US & Australian governments.

The Pine Gap facility is located near the town of Alice Springs, in the central deserts of Australia, and is jointly run by the United States and Australian militaries, which share intelligence with Israel, which has been bombing civilians in the Gaza strip for the past 12 days, killing nearly 4,000 people and displacing over 1 million.

One of the protesters, Gem, explained that “as a nurse, as a Jew, and as a human being, I cannot remain silent while Israel targets hospitals. Pine Gap is a symbol of Australia’s cowardly refusal to take a stance against this genocide. Israel created the conditions for this war by their 75 year campaign of terror against Palestinian people.”

Arrernte woman, Sylvia Neale spoke to the connections between Indigenous struggles in Australia and Palestine: “I am an Indigenous woman aged 79. I am a Christian. All my life I have watched the horrors of humankind’s inhumanity. Not only towards my own people in Australia but all over the world. When will justice and peace come to these Palestinian brothers, sisters, young and old? I pray for them. I support their right to protect their Homeland.”

Solidarity was also expressed by Arrernte writer Declan Furber Gillick: “From black Australia to Gaza and the West Bank of the Jordan River, one struggle, one fight.

I stand unequivocally with the Palestinian people against the brutal, genocidal, decades-long occupation of their lands. I condemn the Australian government’s support for Israel.”

Among the protesters were Jewish Australians who read prayers for Palestinians who have been killed, and those facing the prospect of death every day, as Gem explained “I wont remain silent while Israel enacts genocide against the Palestinian people, in the name of Judaism. We offer these mourning prayers to the Gazan families for whom multinle generations have