War is personal for Prospect MP

By Marilyn Rodrigues November 9, 2023

Hugh McDermott MP says his office is being deluged by people seeking help for relatives trapped under bombardment in Gaza.

The state member for Prospect, a member of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, spoke to The Catholic Weekly just hours before Israeli defence forces began air strikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, attacks the United Nations denounced as “appalling.”

More than 1000 Palestinians, most of them Christians, live in the Labor MP’s western Sydney electorate which includes Prairewood, Wetherill Park and parts of Eastern Creek, Blacktown and Wentworthville.

Mr McDermott said he and his colleagues were being constantly contacted by people trying to get family members out of Gaza or worried about relatives further afield, including Lebanon, as the war deepens.

“Certainly in my community in western Sydney whether they be Christians or Muslims there’s no support for Hamas,” he said.