Suprovat exclusive: A Labor senator has slammed Israel’s retaliatory missile strikes in Gaza, warning that the ‘price tag’ of the Jewish state’s ‘right to defend itself cannot be the destruction of Palestine’.

Senator Fatima Payman, an Afghan-born Labor politician representing Western Australia, took to the Senate floor on Tuesday 17^th October 223 to call for the government to condemn Israel.

‘Israeli missiles strike residential dwellings, civilians, multistorey apartments, health facilities as well as places of worship, indiscriminately killing men, women and children. We must condemn it,’ Senator Payman said.

The brave senator Payman, who as a devout Muslim became the first hijab-wearing woman in the Australian parliament after being elected last year, also accused Israel of committing war crimes by using white phosphorus in Gaza.

The Jewish state disputes this.

‘The price tag of Israel’s right to defend itself cannot be the destruction of Palestine,’ Senator Payman said.

‘Israel’s right to defend its civilians cannot equate to the annihilation of Palestinian civilians. I hereby call for an immediate ceasefire to come into effect, alongside many world leaders and experts.’

Senator Payman, began her speech by condemning the ‘killing of innocent civilians in Israel’.

Her comments came just hours before a bomb blast at a hospital in Gaza killed at least 500 people, with more trapped under the rubble – many of them children, Hamas has claimed.

But Israel has denied it was behind the strike at the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, claiming instead it was a rocket misfired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists.

Senator Payman’s intervention in the debate came on the day that four Green MPs refused to back a motion supporting Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas.