The left-wing Australian government has quietly welcomed hundreds of Palestinian refugee arrivals in the weeks since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.
The Department of Home Affairs confirmed Tuesday that 860 temporary visas have been approved for Palestinians with connections to Australia seeking to escape the Gaza Strip up to November 20, ABC News reports.
Canberra’s move to approve the Palestinian arrivals comes as none of the Arab countries that claim to love them as brothers are willing to accept them as refugees, as Breitbart News reported.
Security concerns at the prospect of admitting Hamas sympathizers is a wide concern on the matter as opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan slammed the government for not openly telling Australians about the visa scheme.
“The government needs to come out, be transparent and let us know what processes have been undertaken, on what basis the visa has been granted and what security checks are being undertaken,” he told Sky News.
Neighboring Egypt, the only country that borders Gaza besides Israel, has made it very clear Palestinian refugees will not be tolerated.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has also rejected taking more Palestinians as refugees. To date, no Arab country has.
“No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt,” Jordan’s King Abdullah II declared last month.
According to UNRWA, about 1.5 million Palestinians are already living in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, none of whom feel they have the capacity – or political will – to take more.
Palestinian families flee Gaza City and other parts of northern Gaza towards the southern areas amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas Group. (Mohammed Talatene/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Meanwhile one man the ABC spoke to has already applied for an Australian visitor visas on behalf of more than 50 relatives in Gaza.
He told the outlet the applications were part of about 300 made by a local Palestinian community in Sydney alone trying to bring their families out of the region.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs said: “Australia is doing all it can to support Australians, their immediate family members and a number of long-term visa holders still in Gaza who wish to depart.”
Palestinian-Australian woman Ola Aladassi told the ABC people fleeing the decimated Gaza Strip would need support once they arrived in Australia.
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“Most of these people come here without any documentation with them, without any money with them,” she said. “They come from this very bad experience in the war in Gaza … we need help looking after all of these people.”
She expressed concern about the ability for those granted safety in Australia would ever return to their homeland.
“Can these people be guaranteed to go back?” she asked.
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