A trio of Palestinian human rights groups have launched a legal bid to force Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles, to shed light on whether the government has approved Israel-bound export permits, which could violate international law.
The groups – the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Al-Haq and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights – will attempt to subpoena arms export documents after filing an affidavit in the federal court last week.
The groups, supported by the Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ), hope the documents would show whether permits were erroneously granted due to a failure to properly assess the possibility they could be used to facilitate serious human rights abuses.
Guardian Australia has contacted Marles’ office for a response.
The Albanese government has repeatedly denied that Australia has supplied weapons to Israel since 7 October 2023, and downplayed existing permits as “dual-use” – permits for parts or technologies typically used for commercial or civilian use, but “with potential military and weapons of mass destruction application”.
Marles was again emphatic in August, saying: “Let’s be clear: we don’t supply weapons to Israel.”
In November 2024, the defence department confirmed it had amended or lapsed at least 16 defence-related export permits to Israel as part of a review of 66 “active” exports at the time.
Defence’s deputy secretary, Hugh Jeffrey, said the department had lapsed or amended the permits “because we can’t be confident” they would not be a “contradiction to Australia’s national security or other international obligations”.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailBy October 2025, the department said there were a total of 54 active permits. Twenty-two permits had been issued to Israeli end users since 7 October 2023, five of which had since expired. A further 31 permits issued before the war were deemed as not requiring action while six were subject to “ongoing scrutiny”.
The United Nations independent international commission of inquiry, which does not speak on behalf of the UN as a whole, found in September that “genocide is occurring in Gaza and is continuing to occur”, according to its chair, Navi Pillay.
Former human rights commissioner Chris Sidoti, a member of the international commission, said Australia must ensure it is not involved in the trading of arms used by Israel that could be in breach of international law.
Al-Haq’s general director, Shawan Jabarin, said Palestinians had “the right to know who is arming” Israel and “what is being exported”.
“Our efforts to shed some light on Australian exports have been unsuccessful to date, and we should not have to go to court to understand who is arming the Israeli regime,” Jabarin said.
The groups previously attempted to subpoena documents from Marles relating to Israel-bound exports in November 2023, but discontinued the action citing undisclosed transparency issues.
Rawan Arraf, ACIJ’s principal lawyer, said the Australian arms export regime operates with “minimal public scrutiny, and no meaningful visibility as to what exports have been approved by the Australian government, and on what basis”.
“Our clients believe they may have a right to obtain relief in the nature of judicial review. But because of secrecy around the process, they cannot know for sure until the cloak of secrecy is unveiled.
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