Fiji activists have recreated the nativity scene at a solidarity for Palestine gathering in Fiji’s capital Suva just days before Christmas.

The Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre and Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network recreated the scene at the FWCC compound — a baby Jesus figurine lies amidst the rubble wrapped in a piece of black and white checked fabric, a Palestinian keffiyeh, draped over his body.

This reproduces the nativity scene displayed by the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, Occupied Palestine, a year ago in December 2023.

• READ MORE: Nativity scene places baby Jesus in rubble

The scene was created to symbolise the reality of the children living and being born in Palestine at this time.

“If Christ were to be born today,” said Pastor Munther Ishaq, “he would be born under the rubble and the Israeli shelling.”

Activists say the scenes witnessed over the past year in the besieged Gaza enclave support this imagery.

“Photos of children covered in dust, families bent over the bodies of loved ones, aid workers carrying the injured into hospitals that lack the elements needed to offer care,” said the FWCC in a social media post.

45,000 Palestinians killed
“Over the past year, Israeli attacks have killed more than 45,000 Palestinians living in Gaza, equal to 1 out of every 55 people living there.

“At least 17,000 children have been killed, the highest number of children recorded in a single year of conflict over the past two decades.

“More than 17,000 children have lost one or both parents.

“At least 97,303 people are injured in Gaza — equal to one in 23 people.”

The Bethlehem nativity scene a year ago in December 2023.   Video: Al Jazeera

According to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, every day 10 children lose one or both legs, with operations and amputations conducted with little or no anaesthesia due to Israel’s ongoing siege.

In addition to the killed and injured, more than 10,000 people are feared buried under the rubble.

With few tools to remove rubble and rescue those trapped beneath concrete, volunteers and civil defence workers rely on their bare hands.

“It is NOT Merry Christmas as people in Gaza continue to experience ‘hell on earth’,” said the FWCC post.

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, has condemned Israel’s extensive airstrikes on Syrian installations — reportedly almost 500 times in 72 hours, comparing them to historic Israeli actions justified as “security measures”.

He criticised the hypocrisy of Israel’s security pretext endorsed by Western powers.

Asked why Israel was bombing Syria and encroaching on its territory just days after the ousting of the Bashar al-Assad regime after 54 years in power, he told Al Jazeera: “Because it can get away with it.”

• READ MORE: Israel bombs near Damascus as Syrians celebrate fall of al-Assad regime
• Other Gaza and Syria reports

Bishara explained that Israel aimed to destabilise and weaken neighbouring countries for its own security.

He noted that the new Syrian administration was overwhelmed and unable to respond effectively.

Bishara highlighted that regional powers like Egypt and Saudi Arabia had condemned Israel’s actions, even though Western countries had been largely silent.

He said Israel was “taking advantage” of the chaos to “settle scores”.

“One can go back 75 years, 80 years, and look at Israel since its inception,” he said.

“What has it been? In a state of war. Continuous, consistent state of war, bombing countries, destabilising countries, carrying out genocide, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing.

“All of it for the same reason — presumably it’s security.

“Under the pretext of security, Israel would carry [out] the worst kind of violations of international law, the worst kind of ethnic cleansing, worst kind of genocide.

“And that’s what we have seen it do.

“Now, certainly in this very particular instance it’s taking advantage of the fact that there is a bit of chaos, if you will, slash change, dramatic change in Syria after 50 years of more of the same in order to settle scores with a country that it has always deemed to be a dangerous enemy, and that is Syria.

“So I think the idea of decapitating, destabilising, undercutting, undermining Syria and Syria’s national security, will always be a main goal for Israel.”

In an Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau solidarity rally today, protesters condemned Israel’s bombing of Syria and also called on New Zealand’s Christopher Luxon-led coalition government to take a stronger stance against Israel and to pressure major countries to impose UN sanctions against Tel Aviv.

A prominent lawyer, Labour Party activist and law school senior academic at Auckland University of Technology, Dr Myra Williamson, spoke about the breakthrough in international law last month with the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants being issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Lawyer and law school academic Dr Myra Williamson speaking at the Auckland rally today.  Video: Asia Pacific Report

“What you have to be aware of is that the ICC is being threatened — the individuals are being threatened and the court itself is being threatened, mainly by the United States,” she told the solidarity crowd in Te Komititanga Square.

“Personal threats to the judges, to the prosecutor Karim Khan.

“So you need to be vocal and you need to talk to people over the summer about how important that work is. Just to get the warrants issued was a major achievement and the next thing is to get them on trial in The Hague.”

ICC Annual Meeting — court under threat.      Video: Al Jazeera

French Polynesia’s pro-independence opposition has continued to attack the French government and judiciary for removing its leader Oscar Temaru from the Territorial Assembly.

After last week’s French court ruling that he had breached election campaign rules, Temaru was today absent from the Assembly debate for the first time in 32 years.

The Tavini Huiraatira party’s Antony Geros accused the judiciary of being manipulated by the government in Paris which he said acted to punish Temaru for taking all living French presidents to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

READ MORE: French Polynesian party lashes out at France over court ruling

The legal action alleges that by ordering nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific, the presidents committed a crime against humanity.

Geros also raised last week’s decision of the Court of Cassation, France’s highest court, which quashed the 1959 conviction of the pro-independence leader Pouvanaa a Oopa who had been jailed for eight years.

Geros said only an independent judiciary could help the families hit by the consequences of the nuclear tests.

A total of 193 nuclear tests were detonated at the French Polynesian atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa over three decades between 1966 and 1996.

Temaru also visited New Caledonia earlier this month advocating support for the Kanak campaign for independence.

Temaru’s seat has now gone to the Tavini’s Cecile Mercier.

New Caledonia faces a vote on independence this Sunday under the provisions of the 1988 Matignon and 1998 Noumea accords after unrest and demands for independence in the 1980s.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.