Australia on Thursday said it is adding the entirety of the Palestinian terror group Hamas to its list of outlawed terrorist organizations, Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said.

Hamas’ military wing, Hamas’ Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, has been listed as a terrorist organization since 2003.

Andrews has written to state governments to finalize the listing of Hamas as soon as possible.

“The views of Hamas and the violent extremist groups listed today are deeply disturbing, and there is no place in Australia for such views,” Andrews said.

“It’s vital that our laws target not only terrorist acts and terrorists, but also the organizations that plan, finance and carry out these acts,” she added.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett congratulated his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison for the Hamas decision.

I welcome the news that Australia will list Hamas as a terrorist organization in its entirety.

Thank you to my friend @ScottMorrisonMP for following through on our dialogue on this important matter.

This is another important step in the global fight against terrorism. pic.twitter.com/wQOJHVNr2c

— Naftali Bennett נפתלי בנט (@naftalibennett) February 17, 2022

“I thank my friend, Australian P.M. Scott Morrison, for acting on this issue after the conversation we had on this important matter. It is another important step in the global fight against terror,” Bennett said in a statement.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid also thanked Australian Ambassador to Israel Paul Griffiths for what he described as a “significant step” in Israel’s international effort to curtail terrorist organizations.

Zionist Federation of Australia President Jeremy Leibler said the Hamas listing made clear Australia’s “absolute rejection of hatred and terrorism.”

“There is absolutely no doubt that Hamas in its entirety meets the definition of terrorist organization,” Leibler said in a statement, adding that the decision aligns Australia with the United States, European Union, Britain and Canada.

The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, a national coalition of Australians who support Palestinian rights, disagreed with Hamas’ political wing being designated a terrorist organization.

“The government has failed in its duty of searching for a peaceful solution and has shown it applies one set of rules to Palestine and another to Israel,” Network President Bishop George Browning said.

The designation does nothing to advance the cause of peace and will only create more suffering for the 2 million people currently living under a 15-year Israeli blockade, the Network said in a statement.

Mike Burgess, director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the nation’s main domestic spy agency, said last week that pandemic restrictions in Australia had sent online radicalization “into overdrive” in recent years as isolated people spent more time online.

The proportion of new counter-terrorism investigations involving minors had increased from to less than 3% to 15% in only a few years, Burgess said in his annual threat assessment.

At the end of 2021, minors represented more than half of the spy agency’s priority counter-terrorism investigations, he said.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem & AP)