Bombed into silence: Hearing loss skyrockets in besieged Gaza

Palestinians in Gaza have been shocked to find their hearing impaired following Israeli bombing and are concerned they won't be able to hear incoming attacks

Nadda Osman
Sally Ibrahim
26 November, 2024
THE NEW ARAB

More people in Gaza are experiencing hearing loss as a result of Israel's attacks and the spread of disease [Getty]

When Samir Al-Dadah woke up from a two-week coma after Israel bombed his apartment in Gaza's Al-Jalaa neighbourhood, he was startled to see people's mouths moving but could not hear a sound.

The 39-year-old completely lost his hearing on 24 December 2023 after the Israeli bombing, which killed over 20 people, including five of his family members.

He was wounded in his foot and back, but more startling was when people around him shouted or spoke loudly - he still could hardly hear a word.

Al-Dadah later underwent several medical examinations, learning that he had gone completely deaf in one ear and lost 60 percent of his hearing in the other.

Medical professionals told him he needs to undergo urgent surgery to insert a cochlear implant, however, due to Israel’s closure of land crossings, he has been unable to get the treatment.

"I only remember hearing the sound of a strong explosion and the glow of fire surrounding me, and then I fell to the ground. I don't remember anything after that," Al-Dadah told The New Arab.

He is just one of many Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip experiencing hearing loss and respiratory issues, which experts say is because of relentless Israeli bombardment and the rapid spread of diseases.

Specialists believe that such cases have risen two to threefold compared to before Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023.

Since the start of the war, which has killed at least 44,249 people in Gaza and wounded at least 104,746, Israeli attacks have forced medical facilities to close while the destruction of key infrastructure, such as sewage networks, has allowed diseases to proliferate, some affecting people's hearing.

Chest diseases and ear infections, which result in ear canals being blocked, are becoming more common in the Gaza Strip, experts say, with little medical assistance available to solve the issue.

Children and babies vulnerable

Children and babies are particularly susceptible to diseases and the consequences of Israeli bombardment.

According to Raja Sharaf, the head of the audiology department at Gaza’s Hamad Hospital, there is a notable increase in the number of deaf people, of all ages, in Gaza since Israel launched its offensive on the territory just over a year ago.

Sharaf attributed this to the piercing sound of shelling and explosions, or in some cases direct injuries.

"The sounds of violent shelling causes damage to the auditory nerve and permanent hearing problems that may continue with a person throughout their life. Most injuries are concentrated in one ear, where the infection rate is more than 50 per cent" Sharaf explained, adding that the only means of treatment is to install medical hearing aids.

However, she also noted that some cases are difficult and cannot even be treated with hearing aids, rendering people completely deaf.

On 7 August this year, the Abu Aram family welcomed their newborn baby daughter Julia in the central Gaza Strip. Despite the war on the enclave and harrowing conditions they were subjected to, she was still a glimmer of hope.

Just three days after her birth, the Israeli army targeted a house near where they were staying, forcing everyone in the area to flee for their lives.

In the chaos of being displaced again, Julia’s father Mohammed noticed something unusual in his daughter.

"My baby seemed quiet and only cried when she wanted to breastfeed. Two months later, the baby stopped responding to any sounds" he told The New Arab.

Abu Aram took her to several doctors where his daughter underwent medical tests, all confirming she had indeed completely lost her hearing.

"The news came as a shock to me, as I never expected that my baby would lose her hearing. Every time I try to play with her, I cry a lot because of how she has gone deaf," her father said.

Unable to hear bombing

One of the biggest obstacles Palestinians who are now suffering from hearing loss have faced is being unable to hear airstrikes or calls to evacuate.

Al-Dadah, who has been forcibly displaced and ended up in a tent in the Mawasi area of Gaza’s Khan Younis says this is something that has intensified fears amidst heavy Israeli shelling.

"About a week ago, the Israeli army targeted a tent that was only 500 metres away from my tent, but I never heard the bombing," he explained.

He said that he only knew there was bombing after seeing plumes of smoke arising from the targeted tent.

"I didn't run away like other people. I just felt my heart trembling and didn't know what to do. Day after day, I feel like I will die without even being able to hear the bombing," he added.

Al-Dadah is not the only one with this fear and is one of many who have been affected by Israeli attacks.

Earlier this year, Hashem Ghazal, a well-known carpenter, Palestinian sign language teacher and disability rights activist was killed in an Israeli strike which also killed his wife and wounded his children.

Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, around 10,000 Palestinians have been made disabled, the Palestinian NGOs Network said in June.

The NGO added that destruction of key infrastructure, such as roads and healthcare facilities, only make it harder for people with disabilities.

"This has significantly diminished their ability to mobilise and evacuate safely, and has resulted in the loss of crucial assistive devices, abandoned in the face of bombardment," the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, citing findings from the NGO.

In displacement camps, the experience of people with disabilities can be even more difficult, with experts highlighting that people with disabilities are more vulnerable to malnutrition and chronic illnesses, as well as death.

Rise in tinnitus

Earlier this year, Palestinians described having to wait months before being able to see doctors specialising in ear, nose and throat conditions, and for many, even when they are diagnosed they cannot access treatment.

Palestinians in Gaza who spoke to The New Arab said there has been a sharp increase in tinnitus among people, particularly after loud explosions.

For some, this is a constant ringing in the ears and for others it can be painful and cause headaches. While it is common, it can hugely impact peoples’ quality of life, by affecting their concentration and sleep, even triggering anxiety or depression.

Tinnitus can be caused by exposure to extreme loud noise, a build-up of ear wax or infections that causes ringing in the ears. Some experience it in one or both ears and it can come and go or be ever present.

Despite international organisations condemning attacks on Gaza and highlighting the impact on civilians, Israeli attacks and siege show no signs of ending.

Israeli forces bombed Gaza City’s Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children earlier this year, with Israeli soldiers grinning and posing with rifles in front of the building, as it was engulfed by flames.

The organisation has supported deaf and disabled Palestinians in the enclave since 1992 and employed deaf staff members.

Now, however, those experiencing tinnitus or other problems with their hearing have nowhere to turn to.

"While this is not the first school Israel has attacked using bombs and white phosphorous, this was an attack on what was once a safe and empowering place for deaf and disabled children and directly affects our community and the people we serve," the non-profit organisation Off-The-Grid Missions said in a statement following the attack.

According to Raja Sharaf, audiologist and speech-language pathologist from Gaza, hearing loss has remained a significant and growing problem since the Israeli siege on the enclave in 2007 due to frequent Israeli bombing and sonic booms.

Historically, Israel has imposed severe restrictions on hearing aids entering Gaza, most of which were delivered through the Erez Crossing. Patients would face months of delays while Israel carries out security checks, as well as during national Jewish holidays.

Groups to ask for court ban on UK arms sales to Israel after Netanyahu arrest warrant

Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor

THE GUARDIAN
Tue 26 November 2024 


‘As of Thursday, the UK is now arming suspected war criminals who have been indicted by the world’s pre-eminent criminal court,’ says a lawyer for Global Legal Action Network.Photograph: Sam Tobin/Reuters


Campaigners trying to block UK sales of F-35 jet engine parts to Israel will apply for an emergency high court injunction in light of the international criminal court issuing arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Campaigners at Global Legal Action Network (Glan) and Al-Haq say it is unconscionable British manufacturers are still selling parts that can be used to bomb Palestinians in Gaza. The government has until Friday to file a defence.

At a high court hearing on 18 November, the UK government admitted potential damage to the UK/US relationship was a factor in deciding to continue allowing some exports.


In other previous hearings the court ordered ministers to disclose the rationale for continuing to sell F-35s, at a time when they admitted Israel was breaching international law. The court was not due to hear the case again until January when an extended hearing date was due to be set.

Ministers say F-35 parts go into a general pool and it is not possible to determine which parts will be sold to the Israelis for use in Gaza. The Labour government reversed a Conservative decision to allow some arms export licences to Israel to continue. Labour found that there was a risk the arms would be used to cause serious breach of international humanitarian law.

Last week the international criminal court issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant and the Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif for alleged war crimes relating to the Gaza war. Netanyahu’s office denounced the court’s decision as “antisemitic”.

Glan lawyer Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe said: “It is unconscionable that the UK continues to allow British-made components for F-35s to be used in Israel’s extermination campaign against Palestinians. As of Thursday, the UK is now arming suspected war criminals who have been indicted by the world’s pre-eminent criminal court. For 13 months, Glan and Al-Haq have argued that weapons sales to Israel are unlawful. When will it be enough? Does the UK government have any red lines?”

Al-Haq spokesperson Zainah El-Haroun said: “The latest arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Gallant for the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity add to the insurmountable evidence that British weapons, particularly F-35 components, are being used to commit international crimes, including genocide.”

The move by the two groups, supported by other human rights groups, is the first practical impact of the ICC arrest warrants. It also comes as Conservatives claim that UK laws would prevent the arrest of Netanyahu if he visits the UK as Israel is not a signatory to the Rome statute, the treaty on which the ICC is based.

The foreign secretary, David Lammy, has said the UK will follow due process, suggesting debate is continuing about the legal immunities provided to elected leaders.

In the Commons the foreign office minister, Anneliese Dodds, accepted that Israel was not doing enough to secure humanitarian aid into Gaza, a position that contrasts with the US that claims there has been a substantial improvement in the flow of aid since the US threatened more than a month ago to to withhold arms shipments.

The US last week dropped the threat to withhold arms and also vetoed a UN security council resolution that called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, as well as the release of Israeli hostages.

Dodds told MPs “we’re seeing a very disturbing impact from those restrictions, we’ve seen it in the famine assessment, in the levels of malnutrition and ill-health now prevalent in Gaza. Winter of course is now upon us, making that situation even worse, those restrictions on aid are unacceptable, they must be lifted immediately.”

Minister: UK courts would need to make decision on Netanyahu arrest warrant

Richard Wheeler, Rhiannon James and Claudia Savage, PA
Mon 25 November 2024 

British courts would be required to decide whether to enforce an international arrest warrant should Benjamin Netanyahu enter the UK, according to the Government.

Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer was repeatedly urged by MPs to give a definitive answer on the UK’s likely action after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for the Israeli prime minister and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Mr Falconer said there is a domestic legal process to be followed through the courts that “determines whether or not to endorse an arrest warrant” by the ICC, adding this has “never been tested” as the UK has yet to be visited by an ICC indictee.

Shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel claimed the “only beneficiaries” of the ICC’s decision are “Hamas and their terrorist sponsors Iran” and said the Conservatives believe the warrants have “no basis in international law”.

In reply to Labour MP Sarah Owen (Luton North), Mr Falconer told the Commons: “I’d like to just be clear that what I have said this afternoon is not that the Government will uphold arrest warrants.

“What I have been clear about this afternoon is that due process will be followed. These are questions for independent courts in the UK, and it is independent courts that would review the arrest warrants if that situation were to arise.”

Responding to an urgent question on the ICC’s decision, Mr Falconer earlier said: “In line with this Government’s stated commitment to the rule of law, we respect the independence of the ICC. We will comply with our international obligations.

“There is a domestic legal process through our independent courts that determines whether or not to endorse an arrest warrant by the ICC, in accordance with the ICC Act of 2001.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer with Hamish Falconer (Stefan Rouseau/PA)

“This process has never been tested because the UK has never been visited by an ICC indictee. If there were to be such a visit to the UK, there would be a court process and due process would be followed in relation to those issues.

“There is no moral equivalence between Israel, a democracy, and Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, two terrorist organisations. This Government has been clear, Israel has a right to defend itself in accordance with international law, that right is not under question, and the court’s approval of the warrants last week do not change that.”

For the Conservatives, Dame Priti said: “In charging Israeli leaders alongside Hamas, the ICC appears to be drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s war of self-defence and Hamas terrorism. We utterly reject any moral equivalence.

“The only beneficiaries of this decision are Hamas and their terrorist sponsors Iran, who are now celebrating this propaganda coup as a great victory for Hamas and Hezbollah. Since the ICC decision, we have had dither from ministers and confused messaging and no clarity. So I’m grateful to the minister today for his remarks.

“And as to the issue of warrants, we have raised serious concerns over process, jurisdiction and the position on complementarity principle, and believe the warrants of Mr Netanyahu and Gallant have no basis in international law.”

Benjamin Netanyahu with Yoav Gallant (Abir Sultan/AP)

Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) asked: “Can we be absolutely clear about what the Government is saying, because it seems that the Government is not saying there would be an automatic arrest should Benjamin Netanyahu arrive in this country but that there would be due process?

“And could he confirm that customarily international law does not permit the arrest or the delivering of the serving prime minister of a non-state party to the ICC?

“So he’s committing to due process but he’s not committing to arrest. Am I correct in understanding that?”

Mr Falconer replied: “There’s domestic legal process through our independent courts, we cannot prejudge that process.

“I note that the shadow attorney general has written to the Attorney General on questions of detail in relation to some of the points you allude to and the Attorney General tells me he’ll be writing back on those more detailed points.”

Dame Priti Patel (Victoria Jones/PA)

Labour MP Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) asked the minister to “review all diplomatic, economic and political relations with Israel” to ensure the UK is “not complicit with the atrocities taking place in Gaza, the West Bank and in Lebanon”.

Independent MP Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) said: “The ICC arrest warrants are welcome but in themselves will not bring an end to Israeli war crimes and ethnic cleansing and the killing of innocent men, women and children.”

Several MPs, including Labour’s Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy), also repeated calls for the Government to sanction Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Mr Falconer told MPs: “I recognise the two that I’ve been pressed on the most this afternoon are of intense political interest. But despite their intense political interest, were we to prejudge sanctions and trail them in this House before we made them, we would reduce their impact.

“The same is true of the hundreds of sanctions that we have done on Russia over the years and the same in every forum.”

 Oxford College referred to regulator over FOI revelation of £1m+ investments in illegal Israeli settlements

London, 26th November 2024- The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has lodged a formal complaint with the Charity Commission regarding All Souls College, a constituent college of Oxford University, regarding its business interests in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). 

The complaint concerns £1,121,731.57 worth of investments maintained by All Souls College, revealed in a series of freedom of information (FOI) requests in July and August 2024.

The investments are in four companies that are included in the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights’ database of business enterprises involved in illegal Israeli settlements in the oPt. The complaint alleges that these specific investments are in violation of both domestic and international law, contravening UK Government policy and the July 2024 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) with regards to the illegality of Israeli settlements in the oPt under international law.

All Souls College is registered as a UK Charity under #1138057, meaning that it is subject to charity rules and is regulated by the Charity Commission for England and Wales. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an Advisory Opinion making it clear that States (and their public bodies) must prevent investments that further entrench the illegal situation created by Israel in the oPt.

The seven-figure investment portfolio is split across four companies complicit in Israeli settlements, including £239,725.29 in Airbnb, £613,613.16 in Booking Holdings, £7,761.18 in Expedia Group and £260,631.94 in Motorola Solutions Inc.

ICJP calls on the Charity Commission to investigate, as a matter of urgency, All Souls’ investments. Following an investigation, ICJP calls for the Charity Commission to take appropriate action including, but not limited to,providing guidance regarding charity investment in companies operating in illegal settlements.

ICJP Legal Officer Mira Naseer said:

“The International Court of Justice has been crystal clear on the illegality of Israeli settlements. Not that there was before, but there can be absolutely no excuse now for a British educational institution to remain financially complicit in illegal settlements.

This is yet another example of a university or college putting their finances above their educational duties and the Charity Commission must step in and provide guidance to charities that are making such investments.”

ENDS

ICJP is an independent organisation of lawyers, politicians and academics who support the rights of Palestinians and aim to protect their rights through the law. 

For more information, to arrange an interview with an ICJP spokesperson, or for any other media enquiries, please contact the ICJP news desk at press@icjpalestine.com.

Stand with Palestine on the UN Day of Solidarity – build BDS campaigns!

By Matt Willgress, Labour & Palestine

At the time of writing, Israel’s military assault on Gaza has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, injured more than 93,000 and displaced over 75 per cent of the population.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled earlier this year that this war on Gaza amounts to a plausible case of genocide, and since then arrest warrants have been issued for leading figures in the Israeli regime. This is the context to the massive Palestinian solidarity movement here, which is part of a global movement for justice.

There is also growing recognition here and globally – including from reports from Human Rights Watch to Amnesty International – that Palestinians are subjected to a system of apartheid by the Israeli state.

In terms of the policy of governments internationally, including the UK, genocide and apartheid should be met with a principled foreign policy. Under the Genocide Convention, that requires all steps be taken to prevent genocide and punish those responsible. Specifically, it means sanctions against individuals and entities that have incited genocide.

As was the case with South African apartheid, we therefore urgently need a concerted effort from the labour movement and civil society to see the dismantling of Israel’s apartheid against the Palestinian people.

It was therefore particularly significant that the recent TUC Congress called for BDS – namely boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

As Craig Mokhiber, a former senior UN human rights official, puts it, the ICJ ruling makes BDS “not only a moral imperative and constitutional and human right, but also an international legal obligation.” This is also the setting to the passing of the historic UN motion recently, which Britain abstained on, that called for sanctions on Israel in order to end the illegal occupation.

Despite the shameful stance of Keir Starmer’s government, our BDS movement – spearheaded by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign – is growing here in Britain and is part of a significant global call, which must be prioritised in the time ahead, and is making real advances.

In July, Waltham Forest Council, for example, committed to divesting their pension fund from arms companies. Also in July, it was confirmed Islington Council will not renew its banking contract with Barclays due to Barclays’ investments in Israeli apartheid, and funding of companies arming Israel’s genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.

Then, in September, Lewisham Pension Fund, a fund of the Local Government Pension Scheme, committed to “review and update its responsible investment policy” with a view to “move away” from companies facilitating human rights abuses, such as through the arms trade.

In response to the student encampments for Palestine making clear disinvestment demands, wins have also been made in this sector.

In August, the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), the UK’s largest private pension scheme, divested from £80 million of Israeli assets including Israeli government bonds, following pressure from the UCU trade union and others.

This followed the news in June that Swansea University had committed to divest from Barclays Bank, as part of ensuring all of its investments follow an ethical investment policy.

Kings College meanwhile has now become the first London college to halt direct investments in Israel’s arms suppliers. Middle East Eye reports that “the divestment will see a stop in all of KCL’s direct investments in companies such as Lockheed Martin, L3Harris Technologies and Boeing, known to be leading military suppliers for Israel’s military and involved in the manufacturing of cluster bombs, land mines, depleted uranium weapons and other armaments.”

In the cultural field, earlier this year after at least 163 artists and venues boycotted The Great Escape, the UK music festival ended its partnership with Barclays.

Moving forward, local Labour Parties, Labour councils and other bodies should now be lobbied hard to build on these campaign successes and immediately engage in such campaigns, as part of a movement across the whole of civil society for concrete actions to be taken to help end genocide and apartheid.

Our message is clear – Israel must face real consequences when it doesn’t abide by international law.

• Join Labour & Palestine in marking UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, 1pm, Friday 29th November – with Richard Burgon MP; Hugh Lanning, Labour & Palestine, Louise Regan, Palestine Solidarity Campaign; plus more speakers and guests from Palestine. Register and find out more here.
• Join the workplace day of action on 28th November and the National Demonstration on 30th November – info at www.stopwar.org.uk.

With thanks to Celie and Lewis at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign for research and suggestions.

UN committee observes solidarity day, urges action for Palestinian rights, peace

Officials, envoys emphasize urgency of ending Israel's occupation, addressing humanitarian crises, pursuing two-state solution

Servet Gunerigok |26.11.2024 - TRT/AA


WASHINGTON

The UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People held a special meeting Tuesday to observe the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which falls on Friday.

"Today we once more gather to observe International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, not as a mere commemoration, but as a solemn reminder of unfulfilled promises, denied rights and the historic injustice," said Committee chair Cheikh Niang.

Stating that this year's commemoration takes place amid unprecedented suffering and tragedy, Niang, who is Senegal’s UN envoy, said: "The inalienable rights of the Palestinian people remain unrealized, including their right to self-determination, a right owed to all peoples on earth."

"We urgently call on the international community to take decisive action to end Israel's occupation to ensure accountability for protectors, deliver justice for the victims, and uphold the long overdue liberal rights of the Palestinian people," he added.

General Assembly President Philemon Yang said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be resolved through force, endless occupation or annexation.

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only end when both Israelis and Palestinians are able to live side by side in their own independent states, in peace, security and dignity," said the president.

"We must restore hope, and some Palestinians hope that a better future is possible, and trust in the United Nations and its commitments, we can start building that future here today by demanding a cease-fire, an immediate return of the hostages, and the commencement of negotiations towards a long, lasting peace," Yang said.

Barbara Woodward, the UK's envoy to the UN, said a lasting and comprehensive solution in accordance with international law and relevant UN resolutions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict can only be achieved by peaceful means.

She said the international community needs to redouble efforts to support a cease-fire, release all hostages and take urgent action to address the catastrophic humanitarian crisis and work toward the realization of a two-state solution to the conflict.

"We reiterate our unwavering commitment two-state solution and undermine the need to put in place urgent steps to revitalize a political pathway towards its realization," said Woodward.

Amina Mohammed, deputy secretary-general of the UN, conveyed Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ message, saying the international community stands in solidarity for the dignity, rights, justice and self-determination of the Palestinians.

"This year's commemoration is especially painful, as those fundamental goals are as distant as they have ever been," said Mohammed.

Call for international intervention to stop Gaza tragedy

She said nothing justifies the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas in Israel and nothing justifies the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

"Yet, more than a year later, Gaza is in ruins. More than 44,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been reportedly killed and the humanitarian crisis is getting worse by the day," said Mohammed, who called it "appalling" and "inexcusable".

For his part, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian permanent observer to the UN, read a message from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who said urgent international intervention is needed to stop the tragedy in Gaza, which he said is taking place before the eyes and ears of the world.

"The international community has declared this international day in support of the rights of our people, foremost their right to self-determination and the independence of their state, which necessitates taking practical and dramatic steps to the dangers that are threatening millions of lives and the possibility of achieving a just and comprehensive peace based on international legitimacy," it said.

Abbas demanded suspending Israel's membership in the UN because of its refusal to abide by international law and obligations, and due to its insistence on continuing its crimes against the Palestinian people.

"At the same time, it's imperative to reject Israel's plans to separate Gaza from the West Bank, including Jerusalem, to diminish the state of Palestine's responsibility," said Abbas.

He said Israel needs to stop its settlement and occupation, killings, settler terrorism, attacks on the holy sites and the attempts to alter the legal status quo as well as raids on cities, extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests in Palestine.

"Once again, I reiterate that the occupation will end and Palestinian rights will prevail no matter how long it takes," the message concludes.

In 1977, the UN General Assembly called for the annual observance on Nov. 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

On that day, in 1947, the Assembly adopted a resolution on the partition of Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish.

Netanyahu plans more slaughter after arrest warrants

Global revulsion at Israel's actions in Gaza and Lebanon has pushed the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants. But Western leaders still back Israel.

Former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant (Pic: Wikimedia commons)

By Arthur Townend
Tuesday 26 November 2024  

 SOCIALIST WORKER  Issue 2933

Faced with resistance in Lebanon and international revulsion at its crimes, Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is looking for ­breathing space before slaughtering more people.

Israel’s war cabinet looked set to agree to a temporary ceasefire in Lebanon as Socialist Worker went to press on Tuesday.

The 60-day ceasefire agreement would see Israeli forces withdraw from southern Lebanon.

But so would Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah, which has put up stiff resistance since Israel launched a ground invasion on 1 October.

In negotiations, Israel demanded the right to intervene in Lebanon regardless of a ceasefire.

While this is not a condition of the ceasefire, the United States has assured Israel that there will be a separate agreement affirming this.

The lack of a realisable “end goal” in Gaza and Lebanon—where Israel hasn’t crushed the resistance—drives divisions within Israel over how best to secure domination.

The deal will deepen those ­divisions. Israel’s far right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir opposed the ­ceasefire. “It will be a historical missed opportunity if we stop ­everything and go backwards,” he said.

Those divisions drive Israel’s ­genocidal logic. Despite ceasefire talks, Israel continues to bombard Lebanon. Over the weekend, Israel murdered at least 29 people in the capital Beirut. Hezbollah responded, firing over 340 rockets into Israel.

Even after Israel looked set to accept the ceasefire, its forces issued another evacuation warning in Beirut on Tuesday.

But Israeli divisions are part of a crisis for the Zionist project. Global revulsion has forced Israel’s Western backers to make concessions.

That pressure pushed the ICC court last week to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. It charged them with “crimes against humanity and war crimes”.

All 124 member states of the ICC are now obliged to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they set foot on their soil.

US president Joe Biden reiterated his support for Israel, saying, “There is no equivalence—none—between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”

Other Western leaders are now caught in a bind. A spokesperson for prime minister Keir Starmer said, “Britain will always comply with its legal obligations as set out by domestic law and indeed ­international law.” But they made sure to back Israel, saying, “There is no moral equivalence between Israel, a democracy, and Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, which are terror groups.”

It shines an even brighter light on the West’s hypocrisy. To defend their interests in the Middle East, Western leaders will now have to sink even further into complicity in genocide and war crimes.

Israel is ramping up its siege on northern Gaza, where 130,000 children are trapped by Israeli forces and winter is approaching. It’s essential to keep mobilising the Palestine movements in the West to end all arms sales to Israel.

Netanyahu, Gallant, Biden, Starmer and all the West’s leaders should be in the dock for war crimes.

'Wanted’ posters for Netanyahu appear in Birmingham streets

When pressed about a potential arrest of Israeli premier, British government said it fully respects international law and sees ICC as main judicial actor in world politics

Mehmet Solmaz |26.11.2024 - TRT/AA





BIRMINGHAM, England

Several "wanted" posters depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have appeared across the UK’s Birmingham, referencing the recent International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant issued against him.

Although it is unknown who organized the posters, many took to social media to share photos from different parts of the city, showing Netanyahu's image alongside an ICC logo.

When asked about a possible arrest of Netanyahu on his arrival to the UK, the British government said it fully respects international law and sees the ICC as the main judicial body in the international arena.

"The government will comply with our international obligations," Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Hamish Falconer told the parliament on Monday.

There is a domestic and legal process through our independent courts that determines whether to endorse an arrest warrant by the ICC.”

He also said: "This process has never been tested because the UK has never been visited by an ICC indictee."

Falconer said that the parliament has a common position about the international rule of law being an “important commitment.”

“The International Criminal Court is an important, primary body, in enforcing these norms and the issues on jurisdiction and complementarity were heard by the pre Trial Chamber. Three judges have issued their findings, and I think we should respect those.”

All the actions of the current government will be “guided” by international law, he added.

The ICC last week announced the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant "for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024" in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip following a Hamas attack last year, killing over 44,250 people, most of them women and children, and injuring over 104,700.

The onslaught has displaced almost the entire population of the enclave, and a deliberate blockade has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, pushing the population to the brink of starvation.

UK counter-terrorism police arrest 10 more Palestine Action activists

UK police raided homes of 10 activists linked to a protest against the Israeli Elbit arms company, sparking outrage over misuse of counterterrorism powers

Sebastian Shehadi
London
26 November, 2024

Pro-Palestine activists who protested against Elbit were seized from their homes by police [GETTY]

UK counter-terrorism police raided the homes of ten Palestine Action activists last week, in what campaigners say in a further escalation against pro-Palestine groups.

Police arrested ten more people in relation to the 'Filton 10' case. Ten Palestine Action activists were originally detained after a protest at Elbit’s industrial site in Filton, which is said to have cost Israel's largest arms company over £1m in damages.

The suspects were taken from their homes by counterterrorism police last Tuesday and their residences were sealed off for investigation, family members say.

A parent of one of the arrested activists told The New Arab of her profound "anger" after the police "bashed down [her] door", and handcuffed her 17-year-old son, who was left in freezing weather in his underwear, she added.

Police said the family might not be able to return to their home for two weeks.

A grandmother of one of those arrested also described a police raid on the home at 7am involving three vans and around 20 officers, who confiscated electronic items and a notepad. "The house is now a crime scene," she said.

Commenting on the development, Tom Southerden, Amnesty International UK’s law and human rights director, said: "This latest round of arrests appears to be another disturbing example of a growing trend of terrorism powers being misused against protesters standing in solidarity with Palestinians, both in the UK and in other countries across Europe."

It has not yet been confirmed why the activists were arrested during Tuesday’s raid.

The Filton 10 activists were initially held under the Terrorism Act, but were subsequently charged with non-terror offences including aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder. The suspects are being held on remand ahead of a November 2025 trial, and are subject to arbitrary and severe restrictions.

"Counter-terrorism powers are particularly concerning when they are used to circumvent normal legal protections, such as justifying holding people in excessively-lengthy pre-charge detention," said Southerden.

"Authorities across Europe must cease the misuse of terrorism legislation against people protesting war crimes and apartheid in Gaza and instead focus their efforts on protecting the rights of the Palestinian people and ending the atrocities against them."

Police in the UK have increasingly brought highly controversial charges against journalists and activists under anti-terrorism powers.

Eyewitnesses in Gaza say Israel is using sniper drones to shoot Palestinians

"No boots on the ground."

November 26, 2024
By  Kat Lonsdorf

NPR

Palestinians inspect damage following an Israeli airstrike that hit a home in the north of Gaza City on Thursday

.Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images

TEL AVIV, Israel — "The shelling isn't far from us at all," says Fatma Daama. "The shelling is on our street, around us."

In a series of voice messages recorded for NPR in her apartment on Oct. 9, the 37-year-old Palestinian in Jabalia describes Israeli tanks closing in, as her city and other parts of north Gaza were besieged by Israeli forces.

In one message, she's interrupted by the sound of four quick gunshots.

"Oh, hear that?" she says casually. "That's the quadcopter. It's here most of the time. If I go to the door to get better cell service, the quadcopter starts shooting at me and I have to go back inside. It's very dangerous."



The quadcopter is what many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip call a small sniper drone with a gun attached that can fire single bullets. Over the past five months, NPR has collected accounts about sniper drones from more than a dozen eyewitnesses in Gaza, including Daama. Many say they've seen the drones shoot — and kill — civilians.

Adeeb Shaqfa, 55, lost his 32-year-old son Saher in such an attack. He says he and his son were walking in Rafah, in southern Gaza, on May 31. It was a quiet afternoon and there was no fighting nearby, he says, when a sniper drone appeared in the sky and shot Saher, who was walking up ahead.

"Two men rushed to help him, but the quadcopter also shot them," Shaqfa says. "The quadcopter kept shooting everyone who tried to help."

He says two older women nearby were shot in the head. Shaqfa tried to help them, but they were already dead. One of the men who tried to help his son was killed too, he says.
Eyewitness accounts point to use of sniper drones in different parts of Gaza

The Israeli military tells NPR it is unaware of this incident, which it says "do[es] not align in any way with IDF directives and protocols," using the initials for the Israel Defense Forces. It says any suggestion that it "intends to harm civilians is unfounded and baseless."

Earlier this month, British surgeon Dr. Nizam Mamode testified before the U.K. Parliament's International Development Committee about his experience volunteering in August and September at Nasser Hospital in central Gaza, where he said he treated many injuries from sniper drones.

"The drones would come down and pick off civilians, children. And we had description after description. This is not, you know, an occasional thing," Mamode testified. "This was day after day after day, operating on children, who would say, 'I was lying on the ground after a bomb had dropped, and this quadcopter came down and hovered over me and shot me.' "

Many of those who spoke with NPR brought up these attacks in an offhand way — a reflection, perhaps, of how common the technology seems to them in the war. But little has been reported on it. Israel has not confirmed using sniper drone technology. Israel's United Nations Ambassador Danny Danon told NPR's All Things Considered he could not respond to specific questions about sniper drone use, saying, "We are using sophisticated weapons in order to minimize civilian casualties. The fact that we have sophisticated weapons, it helps us to target and kill the terrorists. And that's what we are trying to do."

NPR has gathered the following additional accounts from eyewitnesses in Gaza:
In Beit Lahiya, in the north, several Palestinians tell NPR that sniper drones shot at civilians late last month as they rushed to help pull people from the rubble after an Israeli airstrike leveled a building full of families. "We came back the day after the strike to try to recover the bodies of our family, but the Israeli quadcopter started shooting at us. We weren't able to get to them," Mohammed Ashraf Abu El Nasr, 18, says.

Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a visiting surgeon from the U.K., describes sniper drones firing on people as they tried to enter Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City, where he was working last November. He tells NPR he saw more than 20 injuries in one day from sniper drone shots, including at least one child shot in the neck. That child later died.

Khaled Abdel Moneim, 27, tells NPR in July he witnessed a sniper drone opening fire in a camp full of displaced people in Nuseirat, in central Gaza. "It fired at people randomly," he says. "It fired very, very, very heavily."

Dr. Mimi Syed, an American emergency and trauma physician who worked at Nasser Hospital in central Gaza for a month this past summer, says she had multiple patients a day — many in pediatrics — with single gunshot wounds to the head. "Every time someone would come in, they would be brought by family, and it was my routine practice to ask what happened. And every time, it would be a quadcopter drone shot," Dr. Syed says. "And this was on individual days, from different parts of Gaza, in individual incidents, over and over again."

In July, Youssef Abd-Alatif, 30, told NPR about his experience with a sniper drone in central Gaza. "We were sitting at home, and then suddenly a sound came, like the sound of fans, and it started getting closer," Abd-Alatif said, describing hearing the drone. "Then it started firing randomly everywhere, and the sound kept getting closer and closer, and the shooting increased everywhere." He and his family fled and found shelter in a school. But many others in his neighborhood, he says, were injured or killed in that incident.

NPR shared details of these accounts with Israel's military, which responded: "The claim that the IDF carries out indiscriminate fire towards children or other uninvolved civilians is completely baseless. The IDF is committed to the international law, as well as the law of armed conflict, and operates accordingly."

There is evidence that Israel's military has sniper drone technology

The Israeli military has not responded to NPR's repeated question if it could verify its use of sniper drone technology in Gaza.

"Israel, frankly, like many militaries, is very cautious about what kinds of information it provides about its operations and tactics that it uses," says Seth Jones, director of defense and security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. "But that also makes it more difficult for everyday Israelis or journalists or other researchers to understand how these things are being used."

Further hampering that understanding was a decades-long Israeli censorship law — lifted in 2022 — forbidding the media from reporting on its use of armed drones. And Israel has not allowed outside journalists independent access to report on the war inside Gaza, where health officials say more than 44,000 people have been killed since the war began after the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, which Israel says killed some 1,200 people.

But sniper drone technology — distinct from that of other armed drones, which often carry bombs — does exist, and videos released by some drone makers and the Israeli defense ministry indicate that the Israeli military has acquired it.

In 2014, veterans of Israeli special forces units formed a U.S.-based company called Duke Robotics, which later announced it had created the TIKAD — a small drone with a camera that could be outfitted with several different types of lightweight firearms and shoot while it hovers, adjusting for the recoil of the weapons. A 2018 marketing video describes the drones as "the future soldier" that can be "deployed to places human soldiers can't reach, or simply shouldn't have to go." The video says the company "is in the process of implementing orders from Israeli forces."

At the end is a tagline: "No boots on the ground."

Around the same time, the Israeli defense ministry shared a video with Israeli press showing some of its newest technology, starting with soldiers seen operating one of Duke Robotics' sniper drones and firing at targets at an outdoor shooting range.


In 2021, Duke Robotics announced it had joined with an Israeli company, Elbit Systems, specifically to further develop the TIKAD drone and market it globally.

Other similar drones are on the market, also made by Israeli companies.

In 2022, an Israeli company called Smartshooter announced a drone called Smash Dragon. A YouTube video posted by the company shows a small drone attached with a rifle barrel taking flight. The video then zooms in through the drone viewfinder to show the drone locking in on a human-shaped target before taking a shot. Smartshooter's website says it uses artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to provide what it calls "'one shot-one hit' precision."

In response to a question from NPR, Smartshooter denied that its Smash Dragon drone is being used by the Israeli military. But Israeli forces have touted the use of other Smartshooter technology in the past, and some other Smartshooter products are partially funded by Israel's Defense Ministry's research and development wing.

A Gaza hospital treats sniper drone attack victims — including its own personnel

Dr. Ahmad Moghrabi, a head surgeon at Nasser Hospital in central Gaza, says he and his colleagues are very familiar with the sniper drone, which they refer to as the quadcopter.

"The gunshot of the quadcopter, it has a special sound," he explains. "They used to shoot at the displaced people inside the hospital, and they killed many people actually at the hospital," he says.

In early February, Nasser Hospital was a focus of the Israeli military, which said Hamas fighters were hiding there. (The hospital has not commented publicly on this allegation). Hundreds of Palestinian civilians, displaced by fighting, had taken shelter there.

Moghrabi says he has treated many people shot by sniper drones — and saved the life of his own co-worker, a nurse who was shot in the chest by a drone on Feb. 1 while the two men were taking a break together on a first-floor balcony after a long surgery.



In a video from the day, which Moghrabi recorded on his phone and sent to NPR, blood blooms from a bullet wound on the nurse's right chest as two colleagues hurriedly help him through the hospital hallways, and then lift him onto an operating table. Colleagues cut away his jacket and scrubs and start an IV drip, getting ready to operate.

The Israeli military tells NPR it is unaware of this incident.

Weaponized drones are part of warfare's present and future

"We're reaching a point where there is increasingly diminished human oversight over the practice of killing in war, and also the decision-making process around who lives or dies," says James Rogers, an expert on drone warfare and emerging technologies at Cornell University.

"No matter how precise your weapon systems are," he says, "if your intelligence is wrong, then all that precision, that guaranteed destruction of the target, means is the guaranteed death of the wrong person."

And, as Jones from CSIS points out, once technology exists, it rarely goes away.

"The reality is, this is an evolution in the character of war," Jones says. "So I don't think we're going to turn around and go the other direction."

Weaponized drones, he says, are part of the future of warfare.

Ahmed Abuhamda contributed to this report from Cairo. Abu Bakr Bashir contributed from London. Itay Stern contributed from Tel Aviv and Yanal Jabarin contributed from Jerusalem.

The Students Can Beat Apartheid Again

The movement to defend 7 LSE students suspended for pro-Palestine activism can take inspiration from the 1960s, when a wave of protests and occupations defeated the university’s attempt to crush opposition to white supremacist Rhodesia.

LSE students stage a sit-in in the Old Building, March 1967. (Beaver, LSE)

By Marral Shamshiri

TRIBUNE
26.11.2024

Students at the London School of Economics (LSE) recently launched a public campaign to challenge the suspensions of 7 students for participating in a protest opposing the university’s financial complicity in Israel’s genocide. Since July, the LSE 7 have been forced into an Islamophobic, management-driven disciplinary process for demonstrating with a megaphone at a summer school event — a protest that a statement in a letter sent by the university egregiously associated with the 7/7 London bombings. As reported in the Guardian last month, the suspensions prompted Gina Romero, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of assembly and association, to criticise LSE for stifling legitimate protest.

But the targeting of the LSE 7 must be understood in a wider context. On 14 May this year, students and staff occupied LSE’s Marshall building for 35 days after publishing a 116-page report, ‘LSE: Assets in Apartheid’, which detailed the university’s investments in companies fuelling the genocide of Palestinian people. LSE engaged in negotiations but refused to meet the core demand on divestment, becoming instead the first British university to evict an encampment with a controversial court order. LSE argued that by engaging in protest, students became trespassers, and despite having told the judge that negotiations would continue after eviction, abandoned negotiations within 24 hours.

Two weeks before the protest, in clear opposition to a unified democratic voice and mandate across the LSE community, including a historic student union vote with 89 percent of 2,584 students in favour of divestment, and several thousand signatures from students, staff and alumni, LSE Council voted against a divestment proposal.

The LSE building occupied this year was renamed after Marshall Bloom, a student from LSE’s 1960s generation. At the height of the ’60s, international solidarity with anticolonial struggles across the world was central to student activism, including opposition to white supremacy in Zimbabwe (then-Rhodesia) and apartheid in South Africa. Marshall Bloom and another student, David Adelstein, were disciplined in March 1967 for writing a letter to the Times opposing the appointment of a new director, Walter Adams, for his complicity in the white supremacist regime in Rhodesia.

Ironically, LSE’s decision to suspend Bloom and Adelstein led to the first student occupation in British history — which sparked the ’60s student revolution at LSE and across Britain.
Britain’s First Student Occupation

In March 1967, hundreds of students took part in an 8-day sit-in, boycotting lectures and going on hunger strike to demand the lifting of Bloom and Adelstein’s suspensions. Singing protest songs such as ‘We Shall Not Be Moved’, students occupying the administration building were removed by police, and 102 were suspended. In solidarity with the ‘rebels’ of LSE, 3,000 students from across Britain marched through London.

Bloom and Adelstein were made scapegoats over the campaign against Adams, who was opposed for his collaboration with the regime in Rhodesia as principal of the University College in Salisbury, Rhodesia. In January 1967, Bloom, president of the graduate students’ association, was banned from holding a meeting to discuss Adams an hour before it was scheduled. Students refused the silencing, but the director instructed porters to prevent entry and remove light fuses from the hall. An elderly porter, Ted Poole, tragically died from a heart attack, and while his death was accidental, several students faced disciplinary proceedings.

The suspensions, which triggered a wave of protests and occupations called the ‘LSE Troubles’ (1966-69), came in response to this incident, but the core issue was LSE’s refusal to engage with students. The university had suppressed a mounting campaign following the publication of a Socialist Society Agitator report on Adams in October 1966. Basker Vashee was a student who arrived at LSE having been imprisoned and deported for protesting at Adams’ university. With Jewish South African students, including Adelstein and Richard Kuper, Vashee warned against Adams’ support for racial segregation and the brutality of apartheid, which shaped the report.

Like the calls for divestment at LSE today, the ’60s campaign did not happen overnight. Student mobilisation at LSE against racism and apartheid in southern Africa began in 1957, including boycotts, protests and teach-ins. On 11 November 1965, when Ian Smith’s white-minority regime made its unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) in Rhodesia, 300 students organised by LSE’s Socialist and African Societies marched to Rhodesia House. Twelve LSE students were arrested when police violently dispersed them. They later forced a Home Office inquiry into police brutality.

Adelstein and Bloom’s suspensions triggered student outrage, leading to the March 1967 occupation, ‘unprecedented in British university history’. At the time, John Griffith, LSE’s renowned professor of public law, argued that university procedures violated the norms of natural justice — the fundamental principles of fair treatment — an argument that the LSE 7 have made in other words today. Later that year LSE quietly backed down, dropping the 102 suspensions and exonerating Adelstein and Bloom.
LSE’s ‘Suitcase Carriers’

After the March 1967 occupation, protests continued, and students faced a variety of repressive tactics — arrests, court and even prison — for upholding their rights to protest and expression. In January 1969, 282 students voted to remove metal gates installed at LSE to restrict student protest after the October 1968 Vietnam occupation. With workers from the Barbican building site, they dismantled the gates using pickaxes and crowbars. Adams called 100 police officers on his students, 13 alleged ‘ringleaders’ were given High Court injunctions, and two professors were sacked for supporting students. LSE eventually dropped the disciplinary cases after widespread outrage — in an extraordinary meeting of 2000 students, a motion to support the disciplined students proposed by Martin Shaw, vice president of external affairs in the student’s union and member of the Socialist Society, passed.

John Griffith repeatedly questioned how punishing students promoted justice. In 1969, LSE enforced the injunctions and tried to send Paul Hoch, John Rose and David Slaney to prison for entering campus. Hoch was subsequently one of three students on trial for protesting the University of London’s ties to South Africa and Rhodesia in Senate House in October 1969. Peter Brayshaw avoided a prison sentence, but Hoch and Gordon Gillespie were jailed, Hoch for six months, and deported for unlawful assembly and assault, a ‘disgraceful’ sentence according to Griffith. The students claimed they were framed by the university following a 30-person sit-in earlier that year against the colour bar in the University of London’s housing policy, which kept separate listings for white and non-white students.

In 2000, ten years after liberation in South Africa, Nelson Mandela delivered a speech at LSE, referring to the African National Congress’s (ANC) call in 1959:


‘LSE, as part of the University of London, was in the vanguard of the great army of men and women across the world who responded to the call to isolate the apartheid regime. They insisted that human rights are the rights of all people everywhere.’

Mandela was praising the role of students. But he was hinting at something else. LSE students’ activism extended beyond protests in Britain. LSE was a main source for the London Recruits — young men and women who carried out secret ANC missions in the ’60s and ’70s. While Mandela was imprisoned on ‘terrorism’ charges, Ronnie Kasrils, an LSE student, identified committed ‘suitcase carriers’ in London: international volunteers who smuggled ANC leaflets and banned literature into South Africa.

Ted Parker was the first student Kasrils approached in May 1967 for his ‘vocal opposition to racial oppression in southern Africa’. In fact, Parker had started the March 1967 sit-in for Bloom and Adelstein, as he explains in an LSE-produced film commemorating the 40th anniversary of the ‘LSE Troubles’.

In 1967, Parker and fellow student Sarah Griffith, the daughter of the aforementioned law professor, travelled to Johannesburg pretending to be an engaged couple, where they unfurled ANC banners and exploded ‘leaflet bombs’ from high-rise buildings. The leaflet bomb was a small amount of gunpowder charge placed under a piece of wood at the bottom of a leaflet-filled bucket. On detonation, the wood was lifted twenty metres into the air, scattering leaflets everywhere. Many disciplined students made the journey, including John Rose, a Jewish student and lifelong anti-Zionist campaigner for Palestinian liberation. Their clandestine activities helped the ANC keep the flame of resistance alive, at a time when the apartheid regime banned the organisation and had thrown its leadership into prison or exile.

Last month, 16 students from this generation wrote to Larry Kramer, present president of LSE, asking the university to avoid repeating the mistakes of 1967. Among the signatories are Steve Jefferys, editor of the 1966 Agitator Adams report, Martin Shaw, now a professor and expert in genocide, Richard Kuper, a founding member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians and Pluto Press, and several London Recruits. They know well that disciplinary proceedings are leveraged disproportionately, against natural justice, to suppress political protest.

But beyond this, the ’60s generation reveal what is really at stake — the fight for a world free of imperial domination, whether against white supremacy in Rhodesia, apartheid in South Africa or the Zionist colonisation of Palestine. There are no universities left in Gaza. British universities have failed to respond to their colleagues’ calls. Instead, they punish students confronting administrations.

The legacy of the activism of the ’60s speaks for itself. Those students were on the right side of history. LSE must honour this legacy. It cannot wait for history to judge the present moment — it is already too late.
About the Author

Marral Shamshiri is a historian and doctoral researcher at LSE. She is an editorial fellow at History Workshop digital magazine and co-editor of the book She Who Struggles.

UK

My Hunger Strike Against Genocide

Lizzie Greenwood is on day 31 of her hunger strike, consuming just 250 calories a day — the same as what Palestinians in Gaza endure. Writing for Tribune, she vows to continue until arms sales stop.

UK activist Lizzie Greenwood is on day 31 of her hunger strike. (Credit: LG)

ByLizzie Greenwood
TRIBUNE
26.11.2024

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so the saying goes, and for the people of Gaza, times have never been as desperate as they are now. According to The Lancet, a world-renowned medical journal, the death toll in Gaza was estimated, conservatively by their own admission, to be 186,000 in August 2024 — three months ago.

It is not only the people of Gaza, however, who are desperate to see an end to the violence. In May 2024, a YouGov poll found that 69 percent of the British public thought Israel should immediately halt its attack on Gaza and call a ceasefire. Another poll found that 58 percent of Brits support an arms embargo against Israel, with just 18 percent opposed.

Despite this, in September, a government review of arms export licences to Israel decided to continue to allow 320 separate arms licences to facilitate what the International Court of Justice has recognised as plausible genocide, making the current Labour government more hawkish than the Conservative governments of Thatcher and Major who both imposed full arms embargoes on Israel during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The dissonance between public opinion and political action the world over on this matter has led to the despair of Gaza spreading into the hearts of people in every nation. In the face of politicians who are defying public opinion and international law, and into an abyss of media silence about their complicity, desperation is pushing people of conscience to take increasingly risky action to try and make themselves heard by those who are refusing to listen, those who turn their eyes from our peaceful protests and stuff their ears to our pleas for peace.

It is out of this desperation that I chose to go on hunger strike until the UK government halts arms sales and military support to Israel. I am currently on day 31 of my strike, during which I am consuming just 250 calories a day — the same amount that Palestinians in Gaza, who are suffering under Israel’s policy of enforced starvation, are currently expected to live on. Last week, I was admitted to hospital, and though I am not yet in immediate danger, I was informed that I am displaying key indicators of starvation.

While we despair over the bombs and bullets which so cruelly take Palestinian lives in Gaza, I hope through my strike to provide a reminder to mourn those who have died and who will die of famine because Israel blocks desperately needed aid from entering the Strip. The most vulnerable group of all in Gaza to the manmade famine are, of course, the children. So long as our leaders and media continue to be silent, and actively try to silence us, those of us with a conscience must make our voices even louder.

Though my hunger strike has left me tired and weak, my spirit and conscience remain strong. With growing numbers of activists taking increasingly desperate actions like mine, the question facing Britain’s political establishment will soon not only be ‘How many Palestinian lives is Israel’s so-called right to self-defence worth?’ but ‘How many British lives are 320 arms export licences worth?’

We, the people, do not wish to be forced to be complicit in the crimes of Israel and will continue to take direct action until our government listens to our demands. If you are reading this, I call on you to take direct action of your own, whatever that may be. Show your dissent and let your government know that you refuse to be silent. History tells us that when the pressure becomes too great, apartheid regimes cannot stand against the will of the people.

About the Author
Lizzie Greenwood is an activist.