God have mercy on the people of Gaza. That’s my message – my message today. God have mercy on the people of Gaza.

Have you seen what’s happening in Gaza? It’s hard not to see what’s happening because it’s being broadcast to us on our mobile phones and, and interesting…

It’s my birthday today. I’m 62 today. I didn’t even know it was Aussie Cossack’s birthday yesterday. Happy birthday to you, brother. I had other things I could do on my birthday, but I’m here because I need to speak out, and I do feel that in my 62 years on this planet, I’ve never seen anything worse than what is happening right now in Gaza?

Have you heard the cries of the men, women and children of Gaza? Have you heard the cries of the children? Little Hind Rajab – did you hear her recorded telephone conversation, calling the emergency services, trapped in a car, all dead around her, calling emergency services.

She’d left Gaza City on the warning of the Israeli Defense Forces and they were driving towards a hospital where they thought they could get refuge. Her uncle and her aunt, and six of her cousins in the car, but they got intercepted by a tank. And when she calls the emergency services, all her family are dead, and it is only her who’s managed to get the mobile phone, and she’s saying “the rest of the family are asleep and they can’t help me”.

Poor little girl. And all the time the Red Crescent are trying to get through. Eventually they get permission and they send an ambulance through and it looks like those people were killed anyway – the little girl and the ambulance – the two ambulance drivers – they haven’t been heard from since. Have we heard these cries? It’s not difficult. It’s being streamed to our mobile phones.

This is a different kind of genocide. This is the first time a genocide on this scale – that murderous actions on this scale have been streamed right into our living rooms, right into our mobile phones!

And you look back at the, the Arminian Genocide in World War I. A million Arminian people killed by the Ottoman Empire, and they kept it hidden. They silently marched them out into Deir ez-Zor, where they raped and murdered and left them to die.A terrible crime against humanity, and somehow they kept it hidden. We … if only we had known, we would’ve done something to stop it.

You think of the terrible Nazi Holocaust in World War II – six million Jewish people killed, and somehow the Fuhrer managed to keep all that from the world, keep it in even from his own people! Until we eventually – the allied troops – broke through and discovered the death camps and the horrors of what had been taking place. And if only we had known, we would not have let that happen.

Well, in this case, we know exactly what is happening. We have no excuse. We hear their cries. We can see the images, the interviews taking place each day. Yes, journalists are being killed in great number in Gaza but they can’t silence the voices of ordinary people using their mobile phones to communicate with the rest of the world what is going on in a desperate hope that someone will step in to save them.

We didn’t know about those other Holocausts. It’s hard to know, but we know exactly what is happening here, and so the only question is “how many people have to die in Gaza before we stand up and do something?” How many people have to die before we stand up and do something?

God have mercy on the people of Gaza, and God have mercy on us all If we don’t stand up and speak out and pray for the lives of these good people.

God help Mercy. Amen.

Father Dave speaking at a rally in Woollahra, Sydney on February 17th, 2024.