Protesters against the role of fossil fuel company Chevron in the Gaza conflict gathered outside the Caltex petrol station in Lismore during peak commuter hours on Friday.
Chevron owns Caltex and also runs natural gas extraction and pipelines off the shore of Israel and occupied Palestine.
The protesters issued a media release after Friday’s event saying Chevron’s business near Gaza makes it a major partner in an ‘Israeli energy apartheid’.
The company’s business activities also made it a partner in the military blockade on Gaza and the ‘illegal exploitation of Palestinian land and resources,’ protesters said.
‘The company is fuelling mass starvation, the killing and injuring of more than 50,000 children and occupation of Palestinian land,’ Friday’ statement read.
U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese last year found there were ‘reasonable grounds’ genocide was happening in Gaza.
Caltex Lismore owner ‘outraged’ by company links to Gaza
Lismore’s rally appeared to attract roughly fifty people as part of national and international 4th of July protests primarily targeting U.S. corporations and the U.S. government on the United States Independence Day.
Protesters waved Palestinian flags, held signs reading ‘Caltex Fuels Genocide’ and handed out flyers to drivers as they entered the petrol station to fill up.
A protester referred to as a local nurse called Daisy was quoted saying she couldn’t stand back and ‘just watch as mothers hold the bodies of their children killed by Israeli bombs and fathers are shot and killed trying to feed their families’.
Protesters said they’d spoken to the Caltex Lismore franchise owner earlier in the week explaining their plans and concerns.
They said he had shared his own outrage at what was happening in Palestine and that he hadn’t known the close link between Chevron and Israel.
The business owner told protesters he would be contacting his supplier to share concerns.
The petrol station had been a BP outlet until the company decided to stop supplying two service stations in the town after the 2022 flood and landslide disasters.
Chevron didn’t publicly comment on the protests.
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