Australia is set to welcome up to 40 current and former Israeli soldiers, including members of units that served in the genocide in Gaza, to run in the Sydney Marathon on Sunday, in an event promoted by pro-Israel groups as a "peace delegation," even as rights organizations demand the soldiers be investigated for war crimes and as Israel walks away from any accountability for the Australian aid worker it killed in Gaza.
The soldiers, whose trip is funded by the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council and the Zionist Council of New South Wales, are to jog across the Sydney Harbour Bridge with a cheer squad awaiting them at the Opera House, running for an Israeli charity that has published their military profiles. Among them, according to Australian reporting, are soldiers from the Golani Brigade, a unit central to Israel's genocide in Gaza. The spectacle of Israeli soldiers being applauded through an Australian city has drawn outrage from human rights advocates who say Australia is offering a safe haven to individuals who may have taken part in atrocities against Palestinians.
The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, Amnesty International Australia, and the Australia Muslim Advocacy Network have demanded that the Australian government investigate soldiers entering the country who served in Gaza. Chris Sidoti, an Australian member of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, has called for anyone who served in the Israeli military in Gaza since October 2023 to be investigated for war crimes if they seek to enter Australia. The groups have warned that Australia risks becoming a haven for people alleged to have committed the gravest international crimes, noting that countries including Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, and Sri Lanka have opened investigations into such allegations while Australia has let Israeli soldiers come and go unchecked.
The timing could hardly be more stark. The welcome for Israeli soldiers comes just days after Israel closed its investigation into the April 2024 drone strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza, among them the Australian Zomi Frankcom, without bringing a single criminal charge. Israel admitted "serious failures" and "mistaken identification" but ruled out prosecution, a decision the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada jointly condemned as "shameful," and which international law experts said should trigger an independent investigation by the three countries whose citizens were killed.
Frankcom was one of seven clearly marked aid workers traveling in a convoy that had coordinated its movements with the Israeli military when it was struck. Her killing became a symbol of Israel's systematic targeting of humanitarian workers in Gaza, where more aid workers have been killed than in any other conflict in recent history. Yet nearly a year and a half later, Israel has ensured that no one will face justice for her death, even as it sends its soldiers to be celebrated in her own country.
Adding insult to injury, the Israeli officer who ordered the strike that killed Frankcom and her colleagues has publicly declared that he is not sorry. In remarks reported by international media, the officer defended the attack and expressed no remorse for the killing of the aid workers, while an Israeli legal expert claimed the decision to close the case aligned with international law.
