Doctors and human rights campaigners demonstrate outside Parliament to demand the release of Palestinian medics detained in Israel, October 21, 2025
DOCTORS gathered under pouring rain in London to demand the release of a high-profile Gazan paediatrician detained by Israel since last December.
Dr Hussam Abu Safiya used his social media to share updates on Israeli attacks on Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza before he disappeared during a lethal Israeli raid.
The 51-year-old hospital director has reportedly been subject to severe beatings and fed just two spoons of rice per day while in custody.
His detention order was last extended for six months under the widely condemned Unlawful Combatants Law on October 16, dashing hopes he would be among those released under a ceasefire agreement recently announced by US President Donald Trump.
On Monday, doctors and healthcare professionals gathered on the Albert Embankment, near St Thomas’ Hospital in central London, demanding his release and that of 114 other Palestinian medics held without charge or trial by Israeli authorities.
They wore scrubs and held large placards saying: “Free Gaza Medics,” “Free Dr Hussam Abu Safiya,” and “Stop Arming Israel.”
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.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAOrcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Pro-Palestinian Jewish American demonstrators rally outside the Manhattan headquarters of Pro-Israel lobbying group American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the offices of Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, who accept donations from the group on February 22, 2024, in New York City, United States. (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“The political rules of the last almost half-century are changing before our eyes,” said Jewish Currents editor Peter Beinart.
As voters sour on Israel after over two years of genocide in Gaza, an internal poll suggests that backing from the pro-Israel lobby may be a liability for Democrats seeking to win their primaries.
The Democratic polling firm Upswing Strategies canvassed 850 Democratic voters in congressional districts across Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. The survey asked voters for some of the most competitive Democratic primaries in the 2026 election cycle a number of questions about their sympathies in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
It also zeroed in on their feelings about pro-Israel lobbying groups, including the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which supported 152 Democrats who received more than $28 million in total during the 2024 election and had a role in toppling several House progressives, including then-Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY).
The poll found that nearly half of voters in these competitive districts (48%) agreed with the statement that they “could never support” a candidate for Congress that was funded by AIPAC or the pro-Israel lobby more generally. Over a quarter of voters, 28%, said they strongly felt they could never support a candidate backed by AIPAC.
Just 40% said they “could see” themselves supporting a candidate backed by AIPAC, “especially if I agreed with them on most other issues,” but just 10% expressed that belief strongly, while the other 30% said they only agreed with it somewhat.
The poll was posted to social media by Matthew Eadie, a reporter for the Illinois news outlet Evanston Now,on Saturday. He said that since it was conducted in early September, its results have been “circulating among Democrats in over a half-dozen competitive primaries in mostly Illinois.”
With Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin’s seat coming open in 2026, several current Illinois congresspeople have signaled their intent to run, leaving their own House seats up for grabs. Among them are some AIPAC favorites, including Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), who received over $63,000 from pro-Israel groups during the 2023-24 election cycle and nearly $269,000 since his first campaign in 2016; and Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.), who received over $17,000 last cycle and nearly $109,000 since her first campaign in 2012.
Pro-Israel groups will also likely seek to hold off yet another primary challenge to Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) from the progressive community organizer Kina Collins, who has run against him during the last three cycles. During the 2024 election, an AIPAC affiliate, the United Democracy Project, spent approximately half a million dollars running ads attacking Collins, who had described Israel’s actions against Palestinians, including its blockade of food and water supplies, as “war crimes.”
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), a progressive who has referred to Israel’s actions as a “genocide” and sponsored a bill to halt military aid to the nation, was targeted with more than $157,000 worth of digital ads and mailers in 2022 by the AIPAC ally Democratic Majority for Israel. However, in 2024, while blitzing other races, the groups held off on targeting Ramirez, whose support was deemed to be too strong.
Other districts in the survey included that of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who has weathered multiple challenges from AIPAC, which likewise held off in 2024 due to her popularity.
On the flip side, it also included the district of one of Israel’s strongest soldiers, the self-described “centrist” Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Pa.), whom AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups armed with more than $5.4 million in 2024 to take down the progressive Jewish incumbent Rep. Andy Levin, whom AIPAC’s former president called “the most corrosive member of Congress to the US-Israel relationship.”
While the poll’s results were not broken down by congressional district, they do show that in a political era defined by the Gaza genocide, the Israel lobby’s influence within the party may be on the wane. Last week, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a centrist challenger to the progressive Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), seemed to exemplify this when he pledged to return the money he’d received from AIPAC, saying, “I’m a friend of Israel, but not of its current government, and AIPAC’s mission is to back that government.”
This wane is partially due to the collapse of support for Israel among Democrats over the past two years. Affirming what past polls have shown, the Upswing poll found that Democratic voters overwhelmingly have a wildly positive view of not only Palestine, but international organizations that have shown support to Palestinians like the United Nations and Doctors Without Borders, while having overwhelmingly negative views of Israel and especially its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
And while it was less salient to voters than holding President Donald Trump accountable and lowering the cost of living, 53% of voters in the poll said “putting pressure on the Israeli government to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza” was a 10 out of 10 issue on the scale of importance for Democrats to focus on, while 72% said it was at least an 8 out of 10.
Peter Beinart, the editor-at-large of the progressive magazine Jewish Currents, said, “It’s astonishing how quickly the politics are moving.”
Democratic politicians, he continued, now “don’t fear AIPAC. They fear being associated with AIPAC. The political rules of the last almost half-century are changing before our eyes.”
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.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
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Hundreds gather near Wilmersdorfer Strasse metro station to protest Israel’s attacks on Gaza and to show support for Palestinians, on July 5, 2025, in Berlin, Germany. [Erbil Basay/Anadolu via Getty Images]
For several years now, the Palestine solidarity movement in Germany has faced severe repression. Yet after 7 October 2023, this harassment reached new levels: In the first weeks following the Gaza uprising and the beginning of the genocide, demonstrations were broadly banned in a number of German cities – especially in the capital, Berlin. Both Hamas and the international prisoner solidarity network “Samidoun” were declared illegal by executive order, and the slogan “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” was classified as a prohibited “symbol” of Hamas.
To this day, censorship, criminal charges and brutal police violence against pro-Palestinian demonstrators remain commonplace. Events are regularly cancelled – even UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, was denied access to university venues in Munich in February 2025. Repeatedly, police have conducted house searches because individuals “liked” posts online, used the phrase “From the river to the sea…”, compared Israel’s actions to Nazi crimes, or accused German politicians of complicity in war crimes.
According to estimates, police have opened around 10,000 criminal investigations related to Palestine solidarity over the past 24 months. In May 2024, the Berlin Palestine Congress was forcibly shut down by authorities; internationally recognised guests were denied entry to Germany. Six months after the bans on Samidoun and Hamas, the group “Palästina Solidarität Duisburg“ (Palestine Solidarity Duisburg) was outlawed as well, and further bans are reportedly being prepared by German authorities, including against the international BDS movement. Since the beginning of this year, there have also been multiple deportations of Palestinians and pro-Palestinian foreign nationals. The legal aid organisation “3ezwa” estimates that several thousand people across Germany are currently at acute risk of expulsion or deportation.
This campaign to suppress freedom of expression – which is openly racist and particularly targets Arab and Muslim communities – is drawing increasing international attention. As early as late October 2023, Human Rights Watch (HRW) raised the alarm, criticising, among other things, the handling of pro-Palestine demonstrations by German authorities. Soon after, criticism also came from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). In mid-May 2025, the European Legal Support Center (ELSC) launched the “first available database on anti-Palestinian repression in Germany”. At that time, the database already documented 766 cases of censorship, surveillance, bans on demonstrations, arrests, workplace and financial repression, relevant laws and resolutions, intimidation, and migration-related reprisals.
In June, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights felt compelled to send a letter to the German Interior Minister. In it, he referred to “reports of excessive use of force by police against protesters, including minors,” expressed “concern” that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition “has been interpreted by some German authorities in ways which lead to the blanket classification of criticism of Israel as antisemitic,” and “recalled” that EU member states “have both an obligation to refrain from undue interference with human rights and also positive obligations to safeguard these rights by securing their effective enjoyment for everyone.”
Last week, the United Nations intervened again. Six independent experts called on Germany “to halt criminalisation and police violence against Palestinian solidarity activism.” They, too, focused on police brutality, but also explicitly criticised the criminalisation of the slogan “From the River to the Sea Palestine will be free.” Their concluding statement declared: “Germany must support, not suppress, actions aiming to stop atrocity crimes and genocide.”
International media now report regularly on the state-driven anti-Palestinian repression and violence in Germany. Images of police officers beating peaceful demonstrators with their fists circulate around the world. Journalists and analysts attempt to explain to a bewildered international audience why a state that so often invokes human rights, freedom of expression and the rule of law acts in such a repressive and inhumane way. Frequently, reference is made to Germany’s “special historical responsibility” arising from the Holocaust. But this explanation is part of the myth.
In reality, the issue has always been about power and money: After the Second World War, West Germany had to rehabilitate itself in the eyes of the Western public. The Federal Republic was built by men who, only yesterday, had been committed Nazis – politicians, bureaucrats, judges, officers, police and intelligence agents who had all taken part in the crimes of the fascist regime, including mass murder and world war. The focus on the genocide of the Jews – the second-largest group of victims after the Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe (who were, however, the enemy during the Cold War) – coincided with Israel’s emergence as an outpost of Western imperialism. The so-called “reparations payments”, which went not to Holocaust survivors or their descendants but to the “Jewish state”, in fact served as a programme for the economic development and militarisation of the Zionist regime in Palestine. The phrase “historical responsibility” thus functions as a euphemism, much like the colonial “protection treaties” and “protectorates”.
What Germany has created through its “ideology of guilt” is unique: instead of denying or relativising its own crimes, it has singularised, dehistoricised and fetishised them. Germany is perhaps the only country that does not deny a genocide it itself committed, but rather invokes it to justify its imperial foreign policy – even to the point of supporting another genocide.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAOrcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir stands at the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, ahead of an address by the US president in Jerusalem on October 13, 2025. [Chip Somodevilla / POOL / AFP/ Getty Images]
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir warned on Monday that his far-right Otzma Yehudit party will suspend support for all coalition legislation unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government advances a bill imposing the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners within the next three weeks.
Speaking during a meeting of his party’s Knesset faction, Ben-Gvir accused Netanyahu’s Likud party of violating the coalition agreement, which, he claimed, included a commitment to pass a death penalty law during the current Knesset term.“If the death penalty law is not brought to a vote within three weeks, Otzma Yehudit will not participate in votes on coalition bills,” Ben-Gvir declared. He criticised the government for what he called a series of “excuses” to delay the legislation—first before the war, and later during it. “After the war began, they said the law might endanger the kidnapped soldiers,” Ben-Gvir said. “But now, with the return of the living captives, that excuse is no longer valid.”
Ben-Gvir argued that enacting the death penalty would serve as “a significant lever of pressure on Hamas” and should be part of Israel’s “toolbox” in its war on the group. The minister also renewed calls for an escalation in the military campaign, saying Israel should move from limited strikes to full-scale operations.
“We are not in another round of fighting but in a war of revival,” he said. “The goal is not to exact a price from Hamas—it is to annihilate it. The time has come for renewed, intense fighting until that goal is achieved.”
The ultimatum highlights growing tensions within Israel’s ruling coalition, as far-right ministers push for harsher measures against Palestinians while Netanyahu faces both domestic and international pressure over the conduct of the war in Gaza.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAOrcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
General Sir Nick Carter negotiated the deal in Israel. (Photo: GPO / Screengrab)
A military agreement Britain and Israel signed in 2020 has not been modified despite Israel’s attacks on Gaza, the Ministry of Defence admits.
In December 2020, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tweeted that it had signed a military agreement with the UK.
It said British and Israeli military chiefs had agreed to “formalise and enhance the defence partnership and support the growing Israel-UK partnership.”
In Britain, the government gave the new agreement no publicity. Months passed in silence, with no press release or mention by the Ministry of Defence, together with no noticeable interest from the national media.
The silence was broken in May 2021 when Kenny MacAskill MP questioned the government in parliament, requesting it to publish the accord.
But Conservative defence minister James Heappey said the agreement was “being kept at a higher security classification and therefore it will not be made public”.
Heappey said the accord “strengthens the defence relationship between Britain and Israel” and was “an important piece of defence diplomacy”.
…
Now, a response by the MoD to a freedom of information request states that “no amendments or modifications to this agreement exist”, confirming it is still active.
The admission is significant, showing that UK ministers have been content to keep a military accord alive with a state engaged in genocide.
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.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAOrcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Doctors and human rights campaigners demonstrate outside Parliament to demand the release of Palestinian medics detained in Israel, October 21, 2025
