Penny Wong meets Palestinian leaders as she continues calls for peace

The Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has wrapped up two days of talks in Israel and the occupied West Bank by making a renewed call for a “pathway to a Palestinian state”.

Wong stressed “the importance of a humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza, which “obviously cannot be one-sided”, and called for steps towards a sustainable ceasefire.

But Wong also acknowledged the longer-term hopes of Israelis and Palestinians to “peace, security and dignity” and this required “a just and enduring two-state solution”.

“We do have to deal with the pathway to a Palestinian state as part of that,” she told reporters in Jerusalem late on Wednesday local time (Thursday morning Australian time).

Wong spoke after visiting representatives of Palestinian communities affected by violence from Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. She said such violence “inflames tensions and undermines stability in the West Bank”.

In Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority is based, Wong also met the Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, and foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki. The pair urged Australia to recognise Palestinian statehood.

Wong reiterated the Australian government’s position that Israeli settlements were “contrary to international law” and “an impediment to peace”.

Earlier on Wednesday, Wong held talks with Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, and expressed Australia’s “deep concern over the conflict’s civilian toll and Gaza’s dire humanitarian situation”.

More than 24,000 people are reported by the Palestinian authorities to have been killed in Gaza – two-thirds of them women and children – since Israel began its military response to Hamas’s 7 October attack on southern Israel when about 1,200 people were killed. About 240 people were also taken hostage.

Wong visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Centre in Jerusalem, where she wrote a message in the guestbook: “We remember.”

While backing Palestinians’ aspirations for statehood, Wong said Hamas could not have any role in the future governance of Gaza due to its “atrocities and terrorist acts”.

“They are an organisation dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel and to the destruction of the Jewish people, so they can have no place in a process for peace,” she said of Hamas.

Wong said it was “important to recognise that for Israelis … October 7 was a deeply horrific and traumatising event, and peace and security go hand in hand”. She repeated her longstanding calls for the release of all hostages.

Wong also defended a key plank of Australia’s new $21.5m humanitarian assistance package for the region, after the Coalition and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry criticised the allocation of $6m to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

The former Labor MP David Feeney claimed in a post on X that this would be “investing in hatred”.

Wong, who is due to meet with the head of UNRWA on Thursday, said Australia wanted health services to be provided and children to be educated.

“UNRWA is the only entity which is able to do that for Palestinians and that is why we support them,” she said, promising to ensure a focus on ensuring that the funds are used for service delivery.

Wong also said there was no contradiction between Australia’s support for Israel to defend itself after the 7 October attacks, and the call for it to adhere to international humanitarian law.

She said democracies should “hold ourselves to higher standards because of who we are”.

But the Greens have written to the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and Wong urging them to stop “providing political cover for Israel’s atrocities” and to publicly support South Africa’s proceedings at the International Court of Justice.

The acting leader of the Greens, Mehreen Faruqi, and the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Jordon Steele-John, said South Africa had presented “serious and compelling evidence that Israel is committing the crime of genocide”.

“Prime Minister, the world is watching,” Faruqi and Steele-John wrote.

“It’s beyond time to put politics aside, to show moral courage, and to be remembered on the right side of history.”

The Israeli government has called the genocide allegations a “despicable and contemptuous exploitation” of the ICJ at a time when Israel “is at war with the genocidal Hamas terrorist organisation”.

Albanese reiterated on Wednesday that Australia was not a participant in the ICJ action. He said Australia respected the ICJ’s independence and role but “that doesn’t mean that we agree with some of the assumptions that are there in the South African case at all”.

The chief executive of aid organisation World Vision, Daniel Wordsworth, said while humanitarian funding was welcome, the desired outcome was a ceasefire.

“A sustainable ceasefire is critical but so is a long-term, peaceful solution for children in the region,” he said.

“Not only are we seeing children killed in Gaza, but we’re also seeing children face a lack of access to the humanitarian aid they need to survive.”

Wong will also travel to the United Arab Emirates as part of her week-long visit to the Middle East.

Additional reporting by AAP