Australia is rejecting the majority of visa applications from Palestinians fleeing Gaza.
The air and ground operation has killed more than 40,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-ruled territory's health ministry. After Palestinian terrorist group Hamas carried out the deadliest attack in Israeli history on October 7, 2023, Israel responded with a devastating military campaign in Gaza.
As a result, the number of Palestinians fleeing to other nations seeking refuge-including Australia-has increased. But there's a sharp difference in Australia when it comes to visa approval statistics; most Palestinian applications are turned down, but a disproportionately high number of Israeli visas are approved.
According to News Corp Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has confirmed that out of the 10,033 applications launched in the past 10 months, 7111 were rejected, while 2922 Palestinians were granted entry into Australia. Out of the 2922 figure, about 1300 refugees have resettled into Australia, who are understood to largely be on short-term visas.
Meanwhile, 8746 Israeli citizens have been granted visas since the October 7 attacks, with 235 applications rejected.
The report was released concurrently with calls by main opposition leader Peter Dutton to stop the entry of Palestinians from Gaza on the grounds that they were a threat to national security.
"I don't think people should be coming in from that war zone at all at the moment," Dutton said on Wednesday. "It's not prudent to do so, and I think it puts our national security at risk."
His remarks were a reaction to what happened on Tuesday, when Coalition Members of Parliament wrote to Tony Burke, urging him to tighten the process of evaluating visa applications from Gaza to make sure they had no support for Hamas. As it stands, applicants are only rejected if they are found to have given financial or material support to Hamas.