It’s been more than two years since Shamikh Badra last heard from his brother. He presumes his brother, sister-in-law and their four children lie buried under the rubble of their home in Gaza. He fears they were buried alive.
Badra told his family’s story at a march in Sydney last Sunday organised by the Palestine Action Group, protesting against Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s upcoming visit.
“This is what genocide looks like in real life,” he bellowed into a microphone to the crowd of at least 2,000 people. “This is what incitement produces, this is what dehumanisation does.
“And now, we are told the man who defended these policies is welcome in Australia.”
Badra is among many Palestinian Australians shocked Herzog will land in Australia on Monday for a four-day visit. In the words of Palestinian Australian Raneem Emad, it’s “a slap in the face”.
Sign up: AU Breaking News email
Amid the outpouring of grief and anger over December’s terrorist attack at a Hanukah gathering on Sydney’s Bondi beach, much of the political focus – including Herzog’s invitation – has, justifiably, centred around antisemitism and the treatment of Jewish Australians.
But many Palestinian Australians grieving for their loved ones in Gaza feel that new anti-protest and hate speech laws are unfairly targeting them.
‘Our lives are worth less’
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, invited Herzog after the 14 December antisemitic attack at Bondi, saying his visit was intended to foster “a greater sense of unity”. Major Jewish organisations and federal and state governments have welcomed Herzog’s visit as a moment of profound significance.
Other groups, including some Jewish Australian organisations, say the Israeli president should be barred from entering the country. They allege he incited genocide against Palestinians, pointing to a UN commission, which does not speak on behalf of the UN, which concluded in September 2025 that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that Herzog, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the then defence minister, Yoav Gallant, “have incited the commission of genocide”.
Israel’s foreign ministry rejected the commission’s report, calling it “distorted and false” and claiming it “relies entirely on Hamas falsehoods”.
Herzog has called the genocide case against Israel in the international court of justice a “form of blood libel” and pushed back on criticism of his 2023 statement that “it is an entire nation out there that is responsible” for the 7 October attacks on Israel.
He claimed he had been taken out of context and noted he had said in the same media appearance that Israel would respect international law and there was no excuse for the killing of innocent civilians. The ICJ is yet to issue its final ruling.
Badra, who moved to Sydney 11 years ago and is undertaking a PhD, has sent a letter urging the government to assess its legal obligations under international law before Herzog arrives in Australia.
“We should not be encouraging people who incite genocide by rolling out the red carpet,” Badra says. “What is the value of celebrating someone like this? What really can you gain?”
To Raneem Emad, “being a Palestinian with heritage in Gaza is such a significant part of me that this visit really does feel like a slap in the face”.
“It’s just this reminder that, no matter how many speeches or statements the Australian government makes that it wants us to be united in social cohesion, our lives are worth less.”
She plans to be at a protest against Herzog’s visit on Monday. The rallies create “so much sense of community”, she says – but are also part of a push for concrete goals, including for Australia to end weapons exports to Israel and to implement boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
“So many of us have lost tens, if not dozens, of family members in Gaza and no one understands that feeling like another Palestinian mother or someone else who has unfortunately had to face such traumatic loss,” she says.
The right to protest
Badra has barely missed a Palestine Action Group rally since 7 October 2023. He marched that December after news his father died in Gaza amid a lack of food, medication and clean water. He marched throughout 2024 and 2025 as he fought to get his mother out of Gaza to Sydney. They were finally reunited in October; he hasn’t told her Herzog is visiting because he does not want to upset her.
And he marched in August after he was verbally abused on a train because his brother was wearing a Palestinian scarf.
On Monday, he says he will be protesting. This is despite a new New South Wales law passed after the Bondi terror attack which curtails the ability for demonstrators to march, and an additional “major event” declaration that further adds to police powers to restrict protest. On Saturday, the police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, confirmed the protest’s planned route from Town Hall through the CBD was “unauthorised”.
Three NSW Labor backbenchers have said they will protest on Monday, with one stating he will be attending because Australia should not be welcoming the head of a state engaged in an “ongoing genocide”. A group of 13 MPs on Saturday wrote an open letter to Lanyon calling for them to permit the march.
As the premier, Chris Minns, announced the “extraordinary powers” to restrict protests after a terrorism declaration, he claimed the “implications” of pro-Palestine rallies could be seen in the Bondi terror attack that killed 15 people.
The federal government’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, Jillian Segal, said in the hours after the Bondi massacre “this did not come without warning”.
“In Australia, it began on 9 October 2023 at the Sydney Opera House,” she said at the time. “We then watched a march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge waving terrorist flags and glorifying extremist leaders. Now death has reached Bondi beach.”
The Greens recently warned the Albanese government’s new hate speech laws could see critics of Israel’s government targeted for prosecution. A NSW parliamentary inquiry – called after the Bondi attacks – has recommended banning the phrase “globalise the intifada” when it is used to incite hatred, harassment, intimidation or violence.
Badra says he is shocked that a parallel has been drawn between the attack on Bondi and protesting against the murder of his family and what the UN commission has called a genocide.
“The criminals who attack people in Bondi are not Palestinians. They are not a part of the solidarity movement,” he says. “We oppose antisemitism, we oppose Islamophobia, we oppose racism.”
Dalia Ahq, who has been protesting on Sydney’s streets for a free Palestine for two decades, agrees. She says the movement’s concerns have always been dismissed but that has been exacerbated over the past two years, and has again after the Bondi tragedy.
She called on the police to let protesters march peacefully against Herzog’s visit on Monday.
“The risk is not us protesting but the police not allowing us to,” she says. “If they let us, it would minimise the risk of any arrests, any injuries in doing what we have the democratic right to do.”
The Palestine Action Group has launched a legal challenge against NSW’s anti-protest laws passed after the Bondi attack.
The group’s Josh Lees says some of the prominent Palestinian advocates in the movement have withdrawn from the public eye because of doxing and safety concerns.
Lees fears the Bondi tragedy is being exploited to try to silence the movement.
“It’s just an upside-down world we’re living in, where we are just trying to protest on the streets against a genocide and yet constantly the government or the media are trying to make out that we are the bad guys,” he says.
The president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, Nasser Mashni, has said that “Australia’s political elite is siding with genocide” by welcoming Herzog.
“For every Australian who says they believe in democracy, human rights, a fair go, free speech, then you simply must protest Herzog’s visit.”
Badra has urged the police and Minns government to let him, and an estimated 5,000 others in Sydney, march on Monday without fear of prosecution.
He says he will be there, and any protests, for the same reason given in his speech to the rally on Sunday: “I stand here for my father, for my brother, for his family, and for every Palestinian life.”
