Call for Israeli fighters to be banned

A senior Muslim leader has called on the Abbott government to ban Australians from fighting for Israel in the long-running conflict with Palestine.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop

Australia will provide $5 million in urgent humanitarian assistance to people in Gaza. (AAP)

A senior Muslim leader says it's "unfair" that Australians are banned from fighting in Syria or Iraq but allowed to join Israel's Defence Force (IDF).

Samier Dandan, president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, says just as the Australians who have gone to Iraq and Syria to fight as enemy combatants could face prosecution when they return, those who fight for Israel in the occupied territories should as well.

He says banning people from joining the IDF would ensure "we don't create more heat within the Australian social fibre among people from different cultures".

"It's hard when you say something to one side and they look and say how come we're not being treated the same - it's not fair," he told AAP.

"The law should be across everyone - that's how we feel."

The comments come after the government in recent weeks expressed concern about the threat posed to Australia by jihadists returning from Iraq and Syria.

Mr Dandan also hit out at the Abbott government's decision to refer to East Jerusalem as "disputed" rather than "occupied".

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has defended the government's decision to refer to East Jerusalem as disputed by describing the shift as a "terminological clarification".

Senior Labor MP and former immigration minister Tony Burke says his party is unequivocal in its view that East Jerusalem is occupied.

Mr Burke, whose seat of Watson in Sydney's southern suburbs is home to a large Muslim community, on Monday criticised the government's decision to recalibrate its policy on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

"There is a limit to what we can do as a nation, but we can speak the truth and we must speak the truth about Palestine," Mr Burke told a large crowd gathered in front of Lakemba Mosque to mark the end of Ramadan.

"We must speak the truth about the need for a Palestinian state, we must speak the truth that East Jerusalem is occupied."

As Muslims gathered at mosques around the country on Monday morning to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, in the Gaza Strip, it was marked by the end to a temporary truce.

The fighting over 20 days has killed more than 1000 Palestinians, most of them civilians.

At least 43 Israeli soldiers have died in the conflict, representing the country's largest loss of life in a military operation in nearly a decade.


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