The Australian government is sending a “significant contingent” of aircraft and supporting troops to the Middle East on standby in the event “this gets worse”, as the death toll from Israel airstrikes passed 5,700.
The acting prime minister and defence minister, Richard Marles, appeared across multiple media outlets on Wednesday morning to announce two additional RAAF planes and support troops were being flown to the Middle East “as a contingency”.
Marles would not say where in the region Australia would base its troops, or how many, but told the ABC a C-17 transporter and a KC-30 tanker would join an existing aircraft on standby, in the event Australians across the wider Middle East needed sudden evacuation.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Australian government is sending a “significant contingent” of aircraft and supporting troops to the Middle East on standby in the event “this gets worse”, as the death toll from Israel airstrikes passed 5,700.
Marles would not say where in the region Australia would base its troops, or how many, but told the ABC a C-17 transporter and a KC-30 tanker would join an existing aircraft on standby, in the event Australians across the wider Middle East needed sudden evacuation.
There are at least 79 Australian citizens in Gaza who still have no clear way of leaving the besieged region, as the border crossing with Egypt remains largely closed.
Marles acknowledged it was “difficult” for the Australians in Gaza but said the government was still working to establish a humanitarian corridor to allow foreign nationals to leave.
“We’re very much encouraging those people to get to the southern part of Gaza in accordance with the warnings that have been made by Israel but we are in touch with those Australians and we will continue to be doing everything within our power to try and make a pathway for them to safety.”
Last week his cabinet colleague Ed Husic said he believed Palestinians were being “collectively punished” for Hamas’s barbarism but Marles said he didn’t have enough information to make that judgment.
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