‘Humanitarian city’ would be concentration camp for Palestinians, says former Israeli PM
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/13/israel-humanitarian-city-rafah-gaza-camp-ehud-olmert
Ehud Olmert says forcing people into camp would be ethnic cleansing, and anger at Israel over Gaza war is not all down to antisemitism
The “humanitarian city” Israel’s defence minister has proposed building on the ruins of Rafah would be a concentration camp, and forcing Palestinians inside would be ethnic cleansing, Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert has told the Guardian.
Israel was already committing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, Olmert said, and construction of the camp would mark an escalation.
“It is a concentration camp. I am sorry,” he said, when asked about the plans laid out by Israel Katz last week. Once inside, Palestinians would not be allowed to leave, except to go to other countries, Katz said.
Katz has ordered the military to start drawing up operational plans for construction of the “humanitarian city” on the ruins of southern Gaza, to house initially 600,000 people and eventually the entire Palestinian population.
“If they [Palestinians] will be deported into the new ‘humanitarian city’, then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing. It hasn’t yet happened,” Olmert said. That would be “the inevitable interpretation” of any attempt to create a camp for hundreds of thousands of people, he said.
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Our Médecins Sans Frontières staff are being killed in Gaza. Why are UK ministers enabling that?
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We have warned the government repeatedly: the response has been pathetic. Britain has a duty to act morally, and stop supporting this genocide.
Dr Natalie Roberts is the executive director of Médecins Sans Frontières UK
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At the beginning of April, we at MSF UK wrote to the foreign secretary, David Lammy, detailing our first-hand observations in Gaza. We described the massive influxes of wounded patients and dead bodies being received by MSF teams in medical facilities across Gaza on 18 March, as Israeli forces unleashed attacks of unprecedented intensity, shattering the short-lived ceasefire. We explained that MSF medical staff and their patients had already had to evacuate 17 health facilities and had endured a massive number of violent incidents, including airstrikes damaging and destroying hospitals and health facilities, tanks opening fire on humanitarian shelters, ground offensives being conducted in medical facilities, and humanitarian convoys and ambulances being fired upon by the Israeli military. We noted that not a single hospital in Gaza was currently fully functional, and that about half of them were no longer functioning at all. And we described the complete siege imposed by the Israeli authorities on Gaza.
We noted that this evidence was consistent with the description of ethnic cleansing and genocide provided by legal experts and human rights organisations. We requested a meeting to brief the foreign secretary further and to hear what concrete actions the UK planned, to hold Israel to account for its atrocities against the Palestinian people.
We did not receive a response.
So on 7 May, MSF wrote an open letter to the prime minister describing the use of starvation and collective punishment as weapons of war by the Israeli government against an entire population. We implored the UK government to uphold its obligations as a permanent member of the UN security council to act under international humanitarian law to protect all civilians in Gaza. We also called on the UK government to publicly condemn the Israeli government for the atrocities it is inflicting on the people of Gaza. We warned that failure to take immediate action and to adopt a clear position on these extensively documented and flagrant war crimes and breaches of international law would leave the UK government at high risk of charges of complicity.
We did not receive a response.
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We can only conclude that the UK government just does not want to admit what everybody else can see: that genocide is being committed in Gaza, and it is being committed with the military, diplomatic and material support of the UK.
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More than 70 arrested at protests against Palestine Action ban
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/more-70-arrested-protests-against-palestine-action-ban
Police officers remove a person after they took part in a protest in Parliament Square, London, to call for de-proscription of Palestine Action, July 12, 2025MORE than 70 people were arrested on Saturday during protests demanding the reversal of a ban on Palestine Action.
Demonstrators held signs reading, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” despite warnings from police that public displays of support could violate terrorism legislation.
Police made 42 arrests in London, 13 in Cardiff, 16 in Manchester and one in Leeds.
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Another protester in London, Kris Welch, a retired special educational needs co-ordinator, said: “My father was in the Polish resistance and wanted by the Nazis and Russians.
“I grew up with the knowledge that there are some lines that cannot be crossed, and people have to stand up, whatever the consequences to them personally.
“I cannot stand by when a genocide is taking place, I cannot stand by while those who want to stop the genocide are branded as terrorists, and I cannot stand by while my government is actively complicit in the Palestinian genocide.”
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Unite to forge ‘authentic voice for the working class’ if it quits Labour
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/unite-forge-authentic-voice-working-class-if-it-quits-labour
Sharon Graham speaks at the Durham Miners’ Gala, July 13, 2025Durham Miners’ Gala 2025
UNITE will forge an “authentic voice for the working class” if it votes to disaffiliate from Labour for attacking striking Birmingham bin workers, general secretary Sharon Graham has told the 139th Durham Miners’ Gala.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s name was booed by the crowd as Ms Graham chanted “shame on you” over her handling of the long-running strikes, as former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that he agreed with her “absolutely.”
Delegates at Labour’s biggest union backer voted to rethink their relationship with the party and suspend Ms Rayner at their policy conference last week.
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The Unite conference also called for the recognition of the state of Palestine and vowed to support “worker-led campaigns to boycott the handling of Israeli goods and services in their workplaces and campaigns for divestment from Israeli companies in their workplaces and the wider economy.”
Mr Corbyn hailed the decision as “historically important because we will stop the supply of weapons to the Israeli Defence Forces to kill people in Gaza.”
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Following attacks from Durham Reform councillors over not being invited to the gala’s platform, Durham Miners’ Association chairman Stephen Guy told the Morning Star that the local Labour MP and Israel supporter Luke Akehurst wasn’t invited either.
“The message is the same, whether you are Labour or Reform, if you don’t share our values or beliefs you don’t get an invite. We have Labour MPs here today on the platform and they’ve been selected because they share our values,” he said.
