Artist Phil Buehler first unveiled the Wall of Tears exhibition in Brooklyn, New York in January.
The initial exhibition featured a 30-metre-long wall naming children killed by Israeli forces between October 2023 and July 2025.
In September 2025, a UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
An earlier UN report from June the same year estimated at least 20,179 children have been killed and 44,143 injured since October 2023.
Israel refused to cooperate with the investigation and prohibited some medical professionals from speaking to the Commission, the report states, with Israel calling for the inquiry’s dissolution.
Political controversy in WA
The exhibition’s appearance at Western Australian Parliament last month sparked controversy after Nationals MP Lachlan Hunter accused Greens MP Sophie McNeill of antisemitism.
Mr Hunter’s criticism followed comments by Ms McNeill describing the children represented in the exhibition as having been killed in “genocide”.
Mr Hunter was later suspended from Parliament for four days after refusing to comply with the Deputy Speaker’s directions during a debate in which he raised the exhibition.
Ms McNeill subsequently issued Mr Hunter with a concerns notice, a formal step that can precede defamation proceedings.
When approached for comment, Ms McNeill’s office said it wanted to keep the focus on the doctors who brought the exhibition to WA and their work in Gaza.
London-based Medical Aid for Palestinians reported in October last year that more than 1,700 health workers have been killed by the IDF in Gaza and the West Bank, while at least 94 per cent of hospitals in Gaza have been targeted or destroyed, with none operating at full capacity and over half completely non-operational.
‘They are not collateral damage’
Perth Doctors Medical Aid for Palestine member Dr Kelly Bell rejected characterisations of the exhibition’s display as a political issue.
She said the first-hand accounts of colleagues who had returned from aid work in Gaza reinforced her view that the exhibition was about a humanitarian issue rather than a political one.
“We know children are being targeted because our colleagues who have been there, the injuries they are reporting are not ones that happen as bystander collateral.
“As a doctor who works with children, and a mother, I believe no child should be subject to the horrors of conflict – the Wall of Tears highlights that they are not collateral damage.”
The UN report found evidence “demonstrating a consistent pattern of children being deliberately targeted by the Israeli forces in Gaza”, including while “trying to evacuate with their families and in place of refuge such as displacement camps, food distribution sites or other locations across Gaza”.
The Canberra exhibition comes days after the UK announced new restrictions on trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The Albanese Government has declined to join the broader trade restrictions, with Foreign Minister Penny Wong saying Australia is instead pursuing further targeted measures against illegal settlements and settler violence.
Dr Bell said it was disappointing more politicians didn’t attend the showing at Western Australian Parliament and hopes more will attend at today’s showing in Canberra.
“When you come and have a discussion with the doctor who’s just returned from Gaza, who’s telling you about the children that have been targeted, how can you not be affected by that?” Dr Bell said.
The Israeli Embassy was contacted for comment but did not reply in time for deadline.
