Sarah Ferguson presents Australia's premier daily current affairs program, delivering agenda-setting public affairs journalism and interviews that hold the powerful to account. Plus political analysis from Laura Tingle.
SARAH FERGUSON: One hundred and twenty-four countries are signed up as parties to the International Criminal Court. Now if the judges issue warrants for the arrest of Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant, the authorities in those countries would be obliged to arrest them. How could Mr. Netanyahu continue as prime minister in those circumstances?
So this is not something that is internally a political issue in Israel. I think they reject it. I think they think that it's a farce. You know, there's a discussion right now, two-state solution, not a two-state solution. How do we move forward, but the ICC made that decision several years ago, and that's what gave them the hope to claim that they have jurisdiction.
SARAH FERGUSON: All right, let me ask you that because in fact, the Leader of the Opposition here in Australia says he is open to cutting ties with the International Criminal Court. Are you urging the Australian Government to withdraw from the ICC? What exact action Australia would take regarding the ICC? I don't know but I think it's very important to defang any potential decision and say look, we don't accept that you have jurisdiction over the case and wherever you decide, you know, Israeli Prime Ministers, defence ministers, soldiers, whatever, are always welcome in Sydney and the rest of Australia.
Obviously, civilians were killed in warfare. It's a terrible thing and it's a tragedy. We've had situations where we've lost dozens of soldiers because of friendly fire. We had this terrible situation where three hostages were able to escape their captors, and unfortunately, they were seen as enemies, and they were killed by our soldiers.
Countries that are intentionally targeting civilians, don't drop millions of leaflets and make phone calls to people to get them out of harm's way. We have taken action that no other country has. RON DERMER: That's right but they've been revised. They've been revised, because what happens is, Sarah, people are using the Hamas Health Ministry statistics. There was a case you remember at the beginning of the war. Ten days into the war where ...
So I would ask people in Australia, a fair-minded people in a fair-minded country, wait until all the facts are there. When you see the facts, you will see that Israel has acted with great care to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties against an enemy that embeds itself in hospitals, schools, mosques, and does everything to put their civilians into harm's way. We're doing everything to keep them out of harm's way.
I sit in the war cabinet and from day one our policy was to enable basic humanitarian assistance to reach those people in need. You take an organization like UNRWA, it is a refugee agency, half of them are, people who work for UNRWA are first degree relatives of Hamas. Ten percent actually are part of Hamas' military arm. Two dozen of this UN agency, two dozen of their personnel perpetrated the attacks of October 7.
Why shouldn't Israel be held accountable for the suffering of people when humanitarian aid has been reduced by the amount that is evident in those figures? Israel is supplying water, actually in much greater quantities than we supplied at the beginning of the war. Around 7 per cent of Gaza's water supply was provided by Israel on October 7. Today, it's around 45 per cent.
RON DERMER: They should make their opinion based on the facts. They should look at the facts. If they follow the facts, I have no doubt that they will throw this attempt to get arrest warrants out because the charges are completely baseless. They can come to Israel, we can share with them everything that we have on the humanitarian assistance we're providing, what has happened day after day since the beginning of the war.
The Prime Minister, I've been in the war cabinet since the beginning of the war. I mean, he's led it with the best interests of the country in mind, to dismantle Hamas as a military organization, to end its political rule in Gaza, to make sure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to us, and to bring back our hostages.
Unfortunately, Hamas rejected it, then they put out their own proposal and basically signed their own proposal. RON DERMER: No, I don't think so and I'll explain the goal also. It's very important for your listeners to understand. They talk about the day after, what's going to happen to Hamas. You got to finish off Hamas. If no one thinks that you're going to finish off Hamas, no one will come in and take over Gaza.
Right now, as the ICC decides whether to issue these arrest warrants, protests against Israel are growing in many parts of the world. Your allies are critical of you, your friends are critical of you. Three countries, Norway, Ireland and Spain, have just recognized a Palestinian state. Has Israel ever been more isolated?
It's a war zone and when in a war zone, there is suffering of people, and we don't see civilian, from our point of view, civilian suffering in Gaza is a tragedy. For Hamas, it's a strategy of warfare. This is a great decision for Hamas, and a great decision for terrorists all over the world and I think Norway and Spain and Ireland, I hope if there's an opposition there, I hope they will reverse this decision.
SARAH FERGUSON: Do you accept Israel's responsibility for the suffering of those children, for the malnutrition that is being suffered right now by children in Gaza?
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