UK
Thousands march for Palestine as Israel intensifies war on Gaza and West Bank
People march through Manchester demanding Britain impose an arms embargo on Israel, August 31, 2024 Photo: John Nicholson
THOUSANDS of protesters across Britain again marched for Palestine on Saturday as Israel intensified its war on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
In major towns and cities calls were made to step up the worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel following news that international coffee shop chain Starbucks saw its market share fall by billions of dollars as customers rebel against the company’s involvement with Israel.
Protests also took place in Israel demanding a ceasefire after Hamas said that six Israeli hostages found dead in Gaza had been killed in Israeli bombing and shelling. Israel said the hostages had been murdered by Hamas as its troops approached.
Calling for more action against organisations investing in firms involved in Israel, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said its research has revealed that local government pension scheme funds in Britain collectively invest over £4.4 billion in companies complicit in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.
The PSC said: “Councils must take immediate action to end ties with companies that are complicit in abuses of Palestinian rights, including by divesting pension funds they administer from companies enabling Israel’s genocide. The deferred wages of local government workers must not be used to fund injustice.”
In the north of England, hundreds marched in Manchester and Leeds.
Norma Turner, chairwoman of Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine which unites a dozen Palestine support and campaign groups, told a rally: “What’s happening in the West Bank is a continuation of Israeli genocide. They won’t stop. So we must do more in solidarity.”
Marchers paused outside the offices of insurance firm AXA in acknowledgement of the firm’s withdrawal of investments from companies involved in Israel.
A young Palestinian woman who addressed the rally, but who was not named, said: “We have protested against AXA’s links with the Israeli military machine — and we have won.
“As a Palestinian, I am still in a privileged position compared with people in Gaza and now the West Bank. It is my duty — and yours — to resist, to challenge Israel’s genocide in whatever ways we can.”
An estimated 400 marched in Leeds where one young woman protester told the Morning Star: “My favourite chants are ‘rise, resist, for Gaza raise your fist’ which is always extra powerful with the hand actions.
“Or: ‘We are the people. We won’t be silenced. Stop bombing Gaza, Now Now.’
“We won’t stop shouting about the atrocities Israel are committing, until the genocide and occupation ends, because silence in the face of evil is how evil persists.
“We’ve seen that from history and now unfortunately before our eyes in present time.”
Demands for divestment were made at a rally in front of Lewisham Town Hall organised by Lewisham and Greenwich Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and Lewisham Stop the War Coalition with support from Lewisham Trades Union Council and Lewisham Muslim Voice.
John McGrath, secretary of Lewisham and Greenwich CND, said: “We’re asking Lewisham council to adopt an ethical position, which they are actually required to do under international law, in that governments, institutions and corporations cannot be complicit with genocide.”
Among the speakers at a rally outside St Thomas’s Hospital in London on Friday was actor Juliet Stevenson.
During the protest, which was called by Amnesty International UK and Healthworkers 4 Palestine, 179 people in medical scrubs knelt in a vigil highlighting the plight of Palestinian healthcare workers detained by Israel.
Amnesty International UK’s crisis response campaigner Tom Guha said: “These dedicated health professionals, whose work is needed now more than ever, have been ‘disappeared’ by Israel.
“The UK government must demand that Israel reveals their whereabouts and releases them immediately.”
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer today condemned the “horrific and senseless” killing of six hostages in Gaza.
People march through Manchester demanding Britain impose an arms embargo on Israel, August 31, 2024 Photo: John Nicholson
THOUSANDS of protesters across Britain again marched for Palestine on Saturday as Israel intensified its war on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
In major towns and cities calls were made to step up the worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel following news that international coffee shop chain Starbucks saw its market share fall by billions of dollars as customers rebel against the company’s involvement with Israel.
Protests also took place in Israel demanding a ceasefire after Hamas said that six Israeli hostages found dead in Gaza had been killed in Israeli bombing and shelling. Israel said the hostages had been murdered by Hamas as its troops approached.
Calling for more action against organisations investing in firms involved in Israel, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said its research has revealed that local government pension scheme funds in Britain collectively invest over £4.4 billion in companies complicit in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.
The PSC said: “Councils must take immediate action to end ties with companies that are complicit in abuses of Palestinian rights, including by divesting pension funds they administer from companies enabling Israel’s genocide. The deferred wages of local government workers must not be used to fund injustice.”
In the north of England, hundreds marched in Manchester and Leeds.
Norma Turner, chairwoman of Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine which unites a dozen Palestine support and campaign groups, told a rally: “What’s happening in the West Bank is a continuation of Israeli genocide. They won’t stop. So we must do more in solidarity.”
Marchers paused outside the offices of insurance firm AXA in acknowledgement of the firm’s withdrawal of investments from companies involved in Israel.
A young Palestinian woman who addressed the rally, but who was not named, said: “We have protested against AXA’s links with the Israeli military machine — and we have won.
“As a Palestinian, I am still in a privileged position compared with people in Gaza and now the West Bank. It is my duty — and yours — to resist, to challenge Israel’s genocide in whatever ways we can.”
An estimated 400 marched in Leeds where one young woman protester told the Morning Star: “My favourite chants are ‘rise, resist, for Gaza raise your fist’ which is always extra powerful with the hand actions.
“Or: ‘We are the people. We won’t be silenced. Stop bombing Gaza, Now Now.’
“We won’t stop shouting about the atrocities Israel are committing, until the genocide and occupation ends, because silence in the face of evil is how evil persists.
“We’ve seen that from history and now unfortunately before our eyes in present time.”
Demands for divestment were made at a rally in front of Lewisham Town Hall organised by Lewisham and Greenwich Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and Lewisham Stop the War Coalition with support from Lewisham Trades Union Council and Lewisham Muslim Voice.
John McGrath, secretary of Lewisham and Greenwich CND, said: “We’re asking Lewisham council to adopt an ethical position, which they are actually required to do under international law, in that governments, institutions and corporations cannot be complicit with genocide.”
Among the speakers at a rally outside St Thomas’s Hospital in London on Friday was actor Juliet Stevenson.
During the protest, which was called by Amnesty International UK and Healthworkers 4 Palestine, 179 people in medical scrubs knelt in a vigil highlighting the plight of Palestinian healthcare workers detained by Israel.
Amnesty International UK’s crisis response campaigner Tom Guha said: “These dedicated health professionals, whose work is needed now more than ever, have been ‘disappeared’ by Israel.
“The UK government must demand that Israel reveals their whereabouts and releases them immediately.”
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer today condemned the “horrific and senseless” killing of six hostages in Gaza.
Sunday, September 1, 2024
MORNING STAR
Step up support for Palestine as Netanyahu faces mass protests
Jon the national demonstration next Saturday in London
By Charlie Kimber
Sunday 01 September 2024
S0CIALIST WORKER
Protesting against Netanyahu and for a prisoner swap on Sunday in Tel Aviv (Picture: @bringhomenow)
The deaths of six Israelis held by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas since 7 October have caused another crisis for Binyamin Netanyahu.
The Israeli leader is facing mass protests and a general strike after Israeli hostage family organisations denounced him for not securing a ceasefire and prisoner-swap deal.
“Netanyahu abandoned the hostages! This is now a fact,” a statement issued by the families’ forum read.
“Starting tomorrow the country will tremble. We call on the public to prepare. We will stop the country,” the statement continued.
Hamas denied killing the hostages and said at least three had been due to be exchanged in a ceasefire deal that recently collapsed due to Israeli intransigence.
A senior Israeli official confirmed this to The Telegraph newspaper. “Hersh, Carmel and Eden were all on the list of hostages set to be released in the 2 July ceasefire proposal presented by Biden. We could have saved them,” the official said.
On Sunday evening a huge demonstration gathered in the Israeli capital Tel Aviv calling for a deal with Hamas. The Histadrut, a trade union federation that has always backed the Israeli state and played a crucial role in settler-colonialism, has called a national strike from Monday.
Netanyahu was also rocked by revelations from Gershon Baskin, an Israel negotiator with Hams on several occasions in the last 20 years.
He posted on Twitter on Saturday, “About two weeks ago, the hostage families’ forum asked me to try to conduct a direct negotiation with Hamas on their behalf. That’s what I did, and within two weeks I obtained agreement to a three-week deal—the release of all 107 Israeli hostages, the end of the war, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and an agreed release of the names and number of Palestinian prisoners.
“The entire Hamas leadership agrees to this outline, but our Netanyahu does not want to end the war. This is the situation today.”
Netanyahu responded to the pressure by vowing more murders. He told Hamas leaders on Sunday, “We will hunt you down, we will catch you and we will settle the score”.
It is good to see Netanyahu in trouble from internal conflict. But the demonstrations in Israel do not challenge the Zionist state that oppresses and exploits the Palestinians. Opposition parties back a move against Netanyahu because they can see a route to their own leadership of the state.
The turmoil is taking place because Israel has not been able to crush Palestinian resistance—almost 11 months since it started its murderous assault. Defence minister Yoav Gallant is now bitterly criticising Netanyahu for delaying a deal.
The protests come as Israel launches its biggest assault in the Occupied West Bank for more than 20 years and ruthlessly continues the murders in Gaza.
On Sunday Israel killed at least 11 Palestinians when its forces bombed the former “Safad” school that houses forcibly displaced people in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City.
The mainstream Bloomberg news agency said recently, “Israeli air strikes have left more than 42 million tonnes of debris in Gaza. It’s enough rubble to fill a line of dump trucks stretching from New York to Singapore.
“The task will be complicated by unexploded bombs, dangerous contaminants and human remains under the rubble.
The Palestinian revolt, revolutions in the Arab regimes, and movements and workers’ actions in the West are the pillars of freedom. Liberation will not come from inside Israel.
Palestine protest diary
Sat 7 Sept, 12 noon, Pall Mall, central London—national demonstration
Wed 18 Sept, 10am , Westminster Magistrates’ Court, London, NW1 5BR. Support Palestine Action’s Richard Barnard—facing terrorism charges—at his plea hearing.
Sat 21 Sept, 12 noon Liverpool—protest at Labour Party conference
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