World
Australia Day Protesters Vandalize Melbourne and Sydney Statues
Some Australians were in no mood to celebrate the country’s national day on Sunday because they had long seen it as a reminder of colonial oppression. A few protesters took that antipathy a step further — by vandalizing statues to British settlers and an English king.
The damage done in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra was a fresh sign that Australia Day, which commemorates when a British fleet sailed into Sydney Harbor to start a penal colony in the late 18th century, remains divisive.
Even as some Australians mark the holiday with barbecues and pool parties, critics note that it set in motion centuries of oppression of Indigenous people. Some prefer to call it Invasion Day or Survival Day, and they make their displeasure clear through protests or other actions.
In Sydney this week, a statue of Captain James Cook, who claimed part of the Australian continent for the British crown in 1770, was drenched in red paint. Its hand and nose were severed, too. The statue had been restored after facing a similar attack last year.
In Melbourne, a monument to John Batman, an explorer who settled the city on lands occupied by Aboriginal people, was toppled and destroyed early Saturday. Protesters in Melbourne also spray-painted the words “land back” on a memorial for Australian soldiers who died fighting in World War I.
And on Sunday in Canberra, the capital, there was graffiti on a statue of King George V. “The colony is falling,” someone had written on its base in red paint.
Australian officials condemned the vandalism.
“We should find it in our hearts and in our minds to respect differences of views but not let it turn ugly,” said Jacinta Allan, the state premier of Victoria, according to a report by the television station 9News.
Representatives for the police in the states of Victoria and New South Wales said on Sunday afternoon that there had been no arrests or charges in connection with the vandalism in Sydney and Melbourne. The police in Canberra did not immediately respond to an inquiry.
People have protested Australia Day for decades. Recent protests were bolstered by the global Black Lives Matter movement, in which people in the United States, Britain and elsewhere toppled statues they saw as symbols of racism and oppression.
Last year in Melbourne, a Captain Cook statue was sawed off at the ankles, and a monument to King George V was beheaded.
Many Australian officials are keenly aware of their country’s racist colonial past, and they’re not afraid to say so publicly. In one example, the City of Melbourne’s website has a section on “truth-telling” that talks about developing “a shared understanding of the impacts of colonization and dispossession on Aboriginal peoples.”
But merely acknowledging historical wrongs is not enough for some Indigenous activists. That was clear when King Charles III visited Australia last year.
“You are not our king,” a voice rang out shortly after Charles, who retains the ceremonial title of head of state in the former British colony, finished addressing Parliament. “Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us.”
The voice belonged to Lidia Thorpe, an Indigenous senator and activist for Aboriginal rights. As security guards hustled her out of the chamber, she accused British colonizers of genocide and demanded that Britain enter into a treaty with Australia’s Indigenous population.
The king watched impassively from the stage.
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Anti-Hamas protests broke out in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday as hundreds of Palestinian men took to the streets to call for an end to the war with Israel.
Videos of the protest began circulating on social media on Tuesday and come as Israeli air strikes and offensive operations against Hamas have continued since the first phase of an internationally-brokered ceasefire ended earlier this month, before a second phase could be secured.
One such video shared with Fox News Digital by the Center for Peace Communications showed protesters chanting, “Hamas get out!”
Palestinians attend a rally calling for an end to the war, in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on March 25, 2025. (AFP via Getty Images)
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The man filming the protest provided his own commentary, which reportedly said, “Gaza’s people don’t want wars. They demand the end of Hamas’ rule. They demand peace.”
“Gazans turned out in anti-Hamas street demonstrations, braving gunfire and prison, in 2019 and again on July 30, 2023. This is the most substantial mass protest since then,” Joseph Braude, president of the Center for Peace Communications, told Fox News Digital. “It highlights Gazan aspirations to end the war by ending Hamas’ reign of terror, alongside the release of all hostages.
“Gazans are expressing anger at Al-Jazeera and global media generally for covering only Hamas, ignoring the voices of Gazan civilians,” he added. “The more attention these brave souls get, the more they can help bring change for the better to Gaza and the broader region.”
Palestinians flee to areas they consider safe following intensive attacks by the Israeli army on the northern Gaza towns of Beit Lahia and Jabalia, on March 25, 2025. (Abd Khaled/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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Palestinian civilians have taken the brunt of Hamas’ brutal and deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which resulted in the death of some 1,200 Israelis and the abduction of 251 others. Fifty-eight of those hostages remain in Hamas captivity, but only 25 are believed to still be alive 535 days later, including American hostage Edan Alexander.
The Hamas-run Gaza’s Health Ministry reported on Sunday that some 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, including 600 over the last four days after Israel officially ended the tenuous ceasefire by launching air strikes after negotiations on hostage releases stalled.
The ministry also reported that over 15,600 Palestinian children have been killed since Oct. 7, 2023.
A woman holds an image of hostage Edan Alexander during the Global Day of Unity and Prayer with Israel’s Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents the relatives of those taken captive during the Oct. 7 attack. (Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images)
According to Israeli news agency TPS-IL, Gaza activist Hamza al-Masry also took to Telegram to share footage of the protest and said, “It is time for our people in all the governorates of the Gaza Strip to come out like them and to be united and united in one message.
“The people of Gaza want to stop the torrent of bloodshed of our people, and enough is enough,” he added.
The violence in the border area marks increased friction between Israel and Syria.
At least six people have been killed in an Israeli attack on Koya in southern Syria, the country’s foreign ministry says.
The Israeli military said the attack on Tuesday took place after armed fighters opened fire towards Israeli troops, without specifying whether the Israeli forces were located within Syrian territory when they were targeted. It said its troops returned fire and that an Israeli warplane struck the fighters. It gave no details on casualties but said “hits were identified”.
Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned “the continued Israeli aggression on Syrian territory, which saw a dangerous escalation in the village of Kuwayya” in the southern Deraa province.
It called for an international investigation into the Israeli attacks on its territory, describing them as a “blatant violation of its sovereignty”.
The Palestinian group Hamas condemned the attack on Koya “in the strongest terms”.
“This fascist aggression represents a serious escalation of Zionist violations against the Syrian Arab Republic and its brotherly people, and a new war crime,” it said on Telegram on Tuesday.
The violence in the border area comes at a time of rising tensions between Israel and Syria, where a new interim government led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa has been installed after opposition fighters toppled former leader Bashar al-Assad last December.
In the wake of al-Assad’s removal, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on military sites in Syria and sent its troops across the border into a UN-patrolled buffer zone, saying they will thwart any threats. Syria’s leadership has said it does not intend to open a front against Israel.
Earlier, the Israeli military said it had “struck military capabilities that remained at the Syrian military bases of Tadmur and T4”, referring to bases in Palmyra and another 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the city. On Friday, the military carried out strikes on the same bases.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned on Tuesday that Israel’s strikes on Syria “risk further escalation”.
Speaking at a joint news conference with Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, Kallas said the pair had discussed Israel’s actions.
“And we [the EU] feel that these things are unnecessary, because Syria is right now not attacking Israel,” Kallas said.
The foreign ministry in Jordan also condemned Tuesday’s incursion and bombardment as “a dangerous escalation” that risked fuelling “further conflict and tension in the region”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded the demilitarisation of southern Syria, which borders the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen told the Security Council on Tuesday that he was “concerned by Israeli statements on the intention to stay in Syria” and demands for the full demilitarisation of the south.
At an Arab summit in Cairo in early March, Syria’s al-Sharaa also called on the international community to pressure Israel to “immediately” withdraw its troops from southern Syria, calling their presence a “direct threat” to peace in the region.
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