New Zealand has given Palestinian authorities $250,000 to support the people of Gaza, who have been suffering weeks of Israeli airstrikes.
Prime Minister John Key says the donation is on top of the $1 million New Zealand already donates annually.
Speaking on Firstline this morning he said it won't solve the problem, but New Zealand is doing "whatever we can" to help.
"In the end long-term, this can't continue. There has to be a peaceful solution; that was ultimately found in somewhere like Northern Ireland, it's happened in other parts of the world, and in the end, Israel and Palestine have to learn to live side-by-side with each other, and that two-state solution's the only way through."
He says the best contribution New Zealand can make towards peace is through diplomatic means.
"The Government did that yesterday, supported by the Opposition parties, when we tabled a motion in Parliament calling for a ceasefire and calling for a long-term solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict."
But he recognises the reality for residents of Gaza is starkly different to that of Israeli civilians.
"Israel has the right to defend itself when Hamas sends rocket fire into Israel. But in reality, even though the Israelis are giving warning to the people in Gaza, the Palestinians there, that they are about to return fire, there's in true reality no place for those people to go," says Mr Key.
"The vast bulk of them are refugees and there's no other place that they can go."
Despite the United States giving millions in aid to Palestine – most recently a $47 million contribution split between the United Nations and its own aid efforts – it's dwarfed by its military aid to Israel, which amounts to billions of dollars a year.
Mr Key says despite this, the US has been working "very, very hard to get the Israelis and the Palestinians back around the table".
"I think you'd have to say in the defence of President Obama, he's taken a slightly less pro-Israel stance compared to other US leaders in the past," says Mr Key.
More than 620 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in the latest round of fighting. The Israeli death toll stands at 29, two of them civilians.
3 News
source: newshub archive
