Emma Kamio, the mother of Leona ‘Ellie’ Kamio, said the four convicted activists were trying to save Palestinian children’s lives. Photograph: Jeff Moore/PA
Barrister representing four who smashed drones at Israeli arms factory says ruling of ‘terrorist connection’ led to heftier sentences
Palestine Action activists who were the first defendants convicted of property damage whose offending was deemed to have a “terrorist connection” have launched an appeal of “fundamental constitutional importance” against the judge’s finding.
Charlotte Head, 30, Leona Kamio, 31, Fatema Rajwani, 22, and Samuel Corner, 24, received lengthy sentences in June for smashing up drones and other equipment at Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems’ factory in Filton, Bristol, in 2024.
Mr Justice Johnson’s decision to sentence them as terrorists after a jury found them guilty of non-terrorism offences – they were committed before Palestine Action was banned – has been criticised by civil liberties groups, including Liberty and Amnesty International.
Simon Natas, of ITN solicitors, who is representing the four prisoners, said serious property damage, which can constitute terrorism, was not clearly defined and could catch a wide range of offending, making the appeal of “fundamental constitutional importance”.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
At least ten military flights have left RAF bases for Israel since Andy Burnham became prime minister, despite Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and escalating attacks in the West Bank, flight data shows.
…
Eight flights by Stratotanker refuelling aircraft departed for Israel from RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk between 24 July – four days after Burnham entered No 10 – and 26 August.
On 11 August, a Boeing C-17 transport plane operated by the US military left RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk for Israel.
Before becoming prime minister, he said he was “sorry” for the way Labour had handled Israel’s attacks on Gaza, but refused to acknowledge that it is a genocide. He has so far not departed from the party’s policy of allowing arms exports to and military support for the apartheid state.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
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The Israeli and German flags are shown in front of the German parliament building in Berlin. [Photo via Getty Images]
Germany approved nearly €800 million ($930 million) worth of military equipment exports to Israel in the first half of this year amid its ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, local media reported Wednesday.
The Economy and Energy Ministry disclosed the figure in its response to a parliamentary inquiry by the opposition Left Party, according to German news magazine Der Spiegel.
Export licenses issued between January and June exceeded four times the total value approved for Israel throughout 2025, the report said.
The surge came after Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government lifted partial restrictions on arms exports to Israel on Nov. 24, 2025.
Merz had suspended exports of weapons that could be used in Gaza on Aug. 8 after Israel decided to expand its military operations in the enclave. The restrictions remained in force for only about three and a half months.
Large-scale defense projects accounted for most of the sharp increase in approvals.
Of the €735.8 million in export permits approved during the second quarter, about 67% was linked to a naval project.
The report highlighted the INS Drakon, an air-independent propulsion submarine built by German shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), which recently left a shipyard in Kiel for Israel.
A further 21% of the licenses covered joint projects involving German and Israeli companies that were deemed to serve the strategic interests of the German armed forces, or Bundeswehr.
The remaining approvals covered military equipment including small arms, ammunition, explosives and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed at least 73,470 Palestinians and injured 174,540 others since October 2023, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry. Most of the victims have been women and children, while around 90% of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has been destroyed.
Lea Reisner, the Left Party’s spokesperson for international affairs, accused the German government of applying “unlimited double standards.”
She criticized Berlin for condemning statements targeting Gaza’s civilian population by Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir while continuing to expand military support for the country.
The Left Party renewed its call for an immediate and comprehensive halt to German arms exports to Israel.
Germany approved €327 million in arms and military equipment exports to Israel in 2023, €161.1 million in 2024 and €260 million in 2025. Its arms sales to Israel had increased tenfold in 2023 from the previous year.
Berlin has long been one of Israel’s strongest supporters, with German leaders frequently defending that support as a historical responsibility arising from Germany’s Nazi past and the Holocaust.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
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U.S. President Donald Trump meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at White House in Washington DC, United States on July 28, 2026. [Ma’ayan Toaf (GPO)/Handout – Anadolu Agency]
Israel is seeking backing from President Donald Trump to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza, as Israeli ministers speak openly about expelling the indigenous, non-Jewish communities from the territories occupied by the apartheid state. Defence Minister Israel Katz said yesterday that the “migration” of more than two million Palestinians out of the territory remains Israel’s preferred outcome.
Katz made the comments at a conference hosted by the Israeli news site Ynet and the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
At the conference, Katz insisted, “There is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration,” and said Israel was “organised and prepared to get them out – by sea, by air, by every way possible.” He argued that Washington’s backing was essential, since “every country willing to take them in wants American backing.”
According to Katz, Trump has “not cancelled” the proposal but has “frozen” it while his administration searches for countries willing to accept Palestinian refugees. Katz also claimed, without offering evidence, that 80 per cent of Gaza’s population wants to leave the territory and is being prevented from doing so by Hamas.
The ceasefire agreement he later sponsored, which took effect in October 2025, states explicitly that “no one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so.” Egypt, which borders Gaza, has continued to reject any plan involving the removal of the territory’s population.
Katz’s remarks, made at a conference days before Israel’s general election, drew criticism in Washington. US Senator Chris Van Hollen said the admission confirmed what critics had long suspected: that Israel’s underlying objective in Gaza is the removal of its population rather than its security.
Forcibly transferring a civilian population out of occupied territory is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which has already issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Katz’s predecessor, Yoav Gallant, over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem have each concluded in recent years that Israel’s rule over Palestinians, from Gaza to the occupied West Bank, amounts to apartheid, a designation successive Israeli governments have rejected.
Many view Katz’s comments less as a new position than a public confirmation of Israel’s ultimate goal. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a settler conference on 26 November 2024 that it was “possible to create a situation where Gaza’s population will be reduced to half its current size in two years” through what he called encouraging “voluntary emigration”, and suggested the same approach could later be applied to the three million Palestinians of the occupied West Bank.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has repeatedly called for Palestinians to be “encouraged” to leave Gaza so that Israelis can resettle it, telling a Jerusalem conference on 28 January 2024, “We must encourage them to leave.”
The rhetoric coincides with Israeli public opinion on the question. A survey published by Haaretz found that 82 per cent of Jewish Israeli respondents supported expelling Gaza’s population. The poll surveyed Jewish Israelis specifically and did not include Israel’s Palestinian citizens, who make up around a fifth of the population.
Writing in her regular Haaretz column, “Otherwise Occupied”, veteran journalist Amira Hass argued this week that the renewed talk in Washington and Jerusalem of a “two-state solution” functions, in practice, as a smokescreen. While officials and commentators debate Palestinian statehood, she wrote, the Israeli state is doing the practical and political groundwork for expelling Palestinians rather than for negotiating with them. Katz’s comments, made in the days after her column was published, appeared to bear that argument out.
Human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and B’Tselem, have for more than a year described Israel’s conduct in Gaza as genocide, and have warned that any plan to depopulate the Strip would compound, rather than resolve, the suffering of its population. With Katz now confirming that removal remains official policy pending a green light from Washington, the question facing Palestinians in Gaza is no longer whether such a plan exists, but whether the US president will let it proceed.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
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Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz in Tel Aviv, Israel, on April 23, 2026. [Israeli Ministry of Defense – Anadolu Agency]
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said there could be no lasting solution for the Gaza Strip without what he described as the “genuine emigration” of Palestinians from the territory, while accusing Egypt of preventing such departures.
Speaking at the “Time for Decision” conference, organized by Yediot Aharonot and the Israel Democracy Institute, Katz said: “There is no real solution without a genuine emigration from there.”
Katz claimed that 80 percent of Gaza’s population wants to leave, but did not provide evidence for the figure.
“Everything is ready for emigration by air, sea and land, but Egypt is not prepared for it,” Katz said. He added that departures were currently being delayed because potential receiving countries were unwilling to accept Palestinians without US support.
Egypt has repeatedly rejected the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza into Egyptian territory and has warned against measures that could lead to their permanent removal from the enclave.
Katz also addressed violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, rejecting the term “Jewish terrorism” to describe such attacks.
“I have abolished this concept. Terrorism is defined as acts committed against the State of Israel,” Katz said.
Asked by journalist Moran Azulay about attacks by settlers on Palestinian villages, Katz instead characterized them as “violence” and said those responsible should be punished. “They are now in prison,” he added.
Turning to Iran, Katz said he believed the likelihood of an Iranian attack on Israel could increase as economic and political pressure on Tehran intensifies.
He said Israel remained prepared both defensively and offensively and was coordinating with the United States over the potential threat from Iran.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
