Rt Hon Winston Peters
Minister of Foreign Affairs

Almost a month ago, on 24 June 2025, we delivered our most recent Ministerial statement on the Middle East to this House.

At that time, the world was grappling with Israel and Iran bombing each another. New Zealanders were in harm’s way. The spectre of escalation and a wider regional war was very real. Back then, we called for de-escalation, dialogue and ceasefire. Thankfully, the United States was able to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Iran – and that wider regional war has, for the time being at least, been avoided.

A month later, though, we continue to be confronted by horrifying scenes playing out in Gaza.

We have the horror of innocent Israeli families, robbed of their loved ones in October 2023 by Hamas’ heinous and immoral hostage taking, still yearning and demanding for them to be freed.

And we have the horror of more and more innocent Palestinian civilians starving, being deprived of their basic needs, and being killed every day – because Israel’s military response to the events of October 7 2023 long ago ceased to be proportionate, reasonable or moral; and because Hamas continues to act with complete disregard for civilian life.

The international community is united in its revulsion to what is happening in Gaza. This horror must end. Too many lives have been lost. Too many people have been traumatised, polarised and embittered – ensuring that yet another generation of Israeli and Palestinian children are born into a situation of insufferable conflict and enmity.

That is why New Zealand has come together with Foreign Ministers from 27 other countries to state as clearly as we can that enough is enough. That this war must end now. That this suffering is intolerable.

In that joint statement, we condemned Hamas’ continued detention of Israeli hostages and called for their immediate and unconditional release.

And we condemned Israel’s policies which are leading to untold and unimaginable suffering and death among Palestinian civilians – and we called for it to comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law.

The international community is joined by an overwhelming majority of Israelis and Palestinians in wanting an immediate ceasefire. That is understandable because only a negotiated ceasefire offers the best hope of bringing Israeli hostages home and of ending the immense suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

New Zealand has always accepted that it has limited influence over the course of this generations-long conflict. The Middle East is a long way away from New Zealand. But we can and must still do our part. And New Zealand’s position has, for decades, been consistent: we want dialogue, we want diplomacy, we want negotiation, and we want a two-state solution.

We call out all actions which undermine the conditions for a two-state solution. This New Zealand government has designated the entirety of Hamas, whose stated objectives include the complete destruction of Israel, as a terrorist organisation. We have also put in place travel bans against Israeli Ministers who have taken concrete steps to undermine the two-state solution by advocating illegal settlements and settler violence.

As today’s joint statement by 28 Foreign Ministers says: we strongly oppose any steps towards territorial or demographic change in the occupied Palestinian Territories. Such steps seek to undermine the two-state solution, and they must stop.

The only way forward is an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire. Human suffering is indiscriminate. In this conflict it has been inflicted in vast quantities on Israelis and Palestinians; Jews, Muslims and Christians. Further bloodshed serves absolutely no purpose. It must stop.

New Zealand, with our partners, reaffirms our complete support for the efforts of the United States, Qatar and Egypt to achieve a ceasefire. We wish them well in this important task.

And, ultimately, what we must see is a political pathway towards peace for Israelis and Palestinians, living securely side by side. Only then can this long-running cycle of conflict be ended – in the hope that the next generation of Israeli and Palestinian children can know better, brighter days.

No matter how hopeless the situation seems, that must be the international community’s objective. And New Zealand will continue to do what it can to contribute to those efforts.

Thank you.

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