Wong leaves on Monday to travel to Israel, Jordan,  the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates over the week and will meet with regional counterparts.

She will meet with the Israeli families of hostages and survivors of the October 7 attacks, as well as Palestinians impacted by Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.

Wong deflected a question about why she was not visiting the sites of the massacres perpetrated by Hamas militants, as other political leaders had.

Meeting the families and survivors of the attack would be important, she responded ahead of her departure on Monday.

“Australia is not a central player in the Middle East, but we are a respected voice and I’ll be using our voice to advocate for a pathway out of this conflict,” she said.

“I will be focusing on advocating Australia’s position, our priority on international humanitarian assistance, our priority on international humanitarian law.”

The opposition has called for Wong to visit one of the affected kibbutzim – about a 90-minute drive from Tel Aviv – in order to strike the right balance during her trip.

The program “appears half hearted”, opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham.

“The failure to visit any of the sites of the October 7 Hamas attacks will disappoint many and deprive Senator Wong of a full appreciation of the atrocities committed,” he said.

No one would criticise the foreign minister for spending an extra half day in the region, Liberal frontbencher Dan Tehan said.

“It’s going to be a missed opportunity if she doesn’t go there,” he said.

“She’s not getting the balance right and that’s not good for social cohesion in this nation.”

Wong again called for Israel to respect international law and to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, as well as allowing unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access so food, fuel and medicine could reach Gazans.

Australia wanted to see steps towards a sustainable ceasefire but it couldn’t be one-sided, she said, again calling for Hamas to lay down its arms.

“It is our view that Gaza must no longer be used as a platform for terrorism,” she said.

Wong’s visit to Israel will be the first by a foreign minister since 2016.

It comes after Sunday marked 100 days since terror group Hamas killed 1200 Israelis and took another 240 hostage.

Israel has since bombarded Gaza with air strikes which local authorities say have killed more than 23,000 people and displaced 1.9 million, or 85 per cent of the besieged strip’s population.

The trip comes just days after Australia supported the US and UK’s bombing of Houthi rebel controlled territory in Yemen following the Iran-backed group’s attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

The rebels have launched assaults in the trade route in response to Israel’s strikes on Gaza.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rejected a suggestion that Australia’s support for the joint action against the Houthis had been inadequate after it increased the number of personnel at the operations centre in the region.

“We’re making an appropriate contribution as Australia always does,” he said.

“We always play our role and it is appropriate that we have people there in Bahrain, we had people before the Houthi attacks.”

– AAP

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