Israel-Palestine

21 April 2024Blog

Another report from the West Bank by the Israeli-Palestinian peace group The Villages Group

On 5 April 2024 Erella, on behalf of The Villages Group writes:

To our friends wherever they be,

Incidents with settlers in the South Hebron Hills villages take place all the time, night and day. We, visiting our friends there most days of the week, reach them either before such an attack…

6 April 2024Blog

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition is ready to try to break the siege on Gaza.

4 April: The international Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) will sail in mid April with multiple vessels, carrying 5,500 tons of humanitarian aid and hundreds of international human rights observers to challenge the ongoing illegal Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

This is an emergency mission as the situation in Gaza is dire, with famine setting in in northern Gaza, and catastrophic hunger present throughout the Gaza Strip as the result of a deliberate policy by the Israeli…

1 April 2024News in Brief

After Declassified revealed on 1 February that at least six Israeli air force planes had taken off and landed in the UK since 7 October, the UK government was forced to admit the true number was nine. www.declassifieduk.org

1 April 2024News in Brief

On 13 February, South Africa asked the international court of justice (ICJ) to order Israel to stop attacking the southern Gazan city of Rafah, where 1.5 million Palestinians have fled.

The world court refused to impose any new measures, saying that it had already made provisional orders on 26 January for Israel to stop killing civilians and to ‘enable the provision’ of desperately needed aid (PN…

1 April 2024News

No evidence group used rape as a weapon of war

Despite claims to the contrary, there is no evidence that Hamas used rape as a weapon of war on 7 October. 

That is the conclusion of months of investigation by Electronic Intifada, the Grayzone, Mondoweiss, YES! and other independent investigators, who have carefully assembled evidence undermining the credibility of key witnesses. They’ve also shown the ‘evidence’ supplied to be very weak. 

An article that persuaded many people that there…

1 April 2024News

Polls show consistent support for end to Israeli assault

Every poll since the beginning of the massacre in Gaza has found that a majority of people in Britain want in an immediate end to Israel’s assault. 

Even if we subtract those who only support a ‘pause’ in the war, we still find that a majority of British people who have an opinion back an immediate, unconditional, permanent ceasefire, as called for by UN agencies and humanitarian NGOs.

The latest poll, conducted on 12 and 13 February, found that two-thirds of British people (66…

1 April 2024News

Protests, blockades & direct action

Israel’s brutal war and starvation campaign in Gaza has continued to spark protest across the UK, with large marches and blockades and property damage at arms companies.

In the last two months, the major Gaza-related protests in the UK have been the national ‘Stop the Genocide – Ceasefire Now’ demonstrations in London, involving tens of thousands. The march went to Downing Street on 3 February, to the Israeli embassy in West London on 17 February, and to the US embassy in South London…

1 April 2024News

No more Gaza lies from Labour or the Conservatives

As PN goes to press, Israel’s war of destruction in Gaza continues, with 32,000 reported deaths, half the people of Gaza on the edge of famine, and a third of the buildings in Gaza destroyed or damaged by the Israeli war machine, according to a UN expert analysis of satellite images.

While the Israeli government continues to threaten an all-out assault on Rafah in the south of Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians have been driven by the Israeli attack, there are signs that…

1 April 2024Feature

A response to the prime minister’s 1 March ‘extremism’ speech

6 March: Rishi Sunak’s ‘speech’ on the alleged increase in ‘extremism’ is part of a wider and coordinated propaganda campaign aimed at manufacturing a crisis that deflects growing public criticisms away from the government’s support of the genocide unfolding in Gaza. 

The prime minister’s address was made in reference to the peaceful pro-Palestine demonstrations that have been held weekly for the past five months against Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. 

This coordinated…

1 April 2024Feature

A group statement by BLM UK, CAGE, Netpol, Palestine Action, Sisters Uncut & others  

PN: On 1 March, prime minister Rishi Sunak spoke out on ‘extremism’. He condemned Gaza ceasefire marchers for allowing ‘extremists [to] hijack your marches’ and called for harsher police action against Gaza demonstrations. 

On 14 March, communities secretary Michael Gove launched a new definition of ‘extremism’. 

This now means promoting ideas aiming to end the rights of others or to ‘undermine, overturn or replace’ parliamentary democracy in the UK. …

1 April 2024News

Israeli units were ordered to prevent the capture of civilian hostages 'at any cost'

Over the past few months, Electronic Intifada (EI) and other independent outlets have gathered together the growing evidence that the Israel defence forces (IDF) deliberately attacked vehicles and buildings on 7 October 2023 when they either knew that Israeli civilians were inside or when there was a significant risk that Israeli civilians might be harmed.

A new Al-Jazeera documentary about 7 October interviews a former British artillery officer, Chris Cobb-Smith,…

1 February 2024News

US/UK airstrikes on Houthis could condemn Yemen to famine and endless war

The US and Britain are, at the time of writing, at war with the Ansar Allah movement that controls over two-thirds of the population of Yemen and a third of its territory. This war is not an act of ‘self-defence’, it is doomed to failure, it is wrecking the fragile and desperately-needed Yemeni peace process, and it is actually strengthening Ansar Allah, known as ‘the Houthis’ after their first leader.

British forces took part in US-led airstrikes and missile attacks on Ansar Allah on…

1 February 2024News

World Court’s legally-binding order to Israel is a historic first, but still has flaws

Three Palestinian human rights groups issued a joint statement on 26 January welcoming the World Court’s decision to consider whether Israel’s war in Gaza is genocidal, and to order Israel to stop killing Palestinians in Gaza, among other measures.

Al-Haq (based in Ramallah, in the West Bank) and Al Mezan and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (both based in Gaza City, Gaza) described the decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ, also known as ‘the World Court’) as ‘a…

1 February 2024News

Meetings banned, peace campaigner faces charges

One worrying trend even more prevalent in France than elsewhere is the stifling of open public discourse about the situation of the Palestinians, and restrictions placed on the freedom of expression of pro-Palestinian voices and movements.

Even before 7 October, public meetings on Israel-Palestine have been prohibited by the relevant authorities (local boroughs, or departmental Préfets) on dubious public-order grounds.

Since 7 October, the trend has got worse: several…

1 February 2024News

New solidarity group takes action in Bournemouth, Brighton, Blackburn and Glasgow

On 7 December, a new Palestine solidarity group, Workers for a Free Palestine, organised 1,000 trade unionists and other protesters to blockade four sites connected to the Israeli war machine: Eaton Mission Systems in Bournemouth, Dorset; the L3Harris factory in Brighton, East Sussex; BAE Systems’s Samlesbury Aerodrome just outside Blackburn in Lancashire; and the BAE Systems Govan site in Glasgow.

All four arms company sites are linked to the manufacture of the F-35 warplane…