David Lammy

Palestine Coalition Statement: Police repression of 18 January protest

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https://palestinecampaign.org/palestine-coalition-statement-police-repression-of-18-january-protest

Posted on March 3, 2025

In Press Releases and Statements

The Palestine Coalition condemns the decision of the Metropolitan Police to issue letters ordering a range of activists, including Stephen Kapos, an 87-year-old Jewish Holocaust survivor, to attend formal interviews over their alleged roles in the Palestine solidarity protest on January 18th, 2025.

Letters have also been issued to prominent actor Khalid Abdalla, Stop the War Coalition officers Lindsey German, Alex Kenny and Andrew Murray, CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt, Friends of Al-Aqsa Chair, Ismail Patel, and probably will be to others.

The police claim in the letters sent to these activists, that they breached conditions imposed by the police to limit the right to protest against the genocide in Gaza.

These restrictions almost certainly came as a result of political pressure from supporters of Israel’s pro-genocide policies.

The protest’s chief steward Chris Nineham and Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal have already been charged with offences arising from the same protest, along with many others. Chris Nineham was violently arrested on the day.

MPs Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have also been interviewed under caution by the police.

This apparently co-ordinated attack against the Palestine solidarity movement is endeavouring to halt public protest on the issue, through harassment of those involved in the movement, and through increasingly draconian restrictions on demonstrations.

That a Holocaust survivor is called in by the police for the alleged offence of carrying a bunch of flowers into Trafalgar Square, underlines the unjustifiable extremes to which the Metropolitan Police are prepared to go, to restrict the right to public protest and silence the Palestine solidarity movement.

What is claimed by the police as justification for this massive overreach of their powers is a complete misrepresentation of what took place, not just on the day but beforehand.

Our cause is to mobilise support for the Palestinian people suffering a genocidal onslaught by the Israeli state, backed by the British government. To pursue this just cause, we must also defend the right to protest – alongside many others who face similar restrictions.

We will not be cowed by these attacks on our rights.

We demand that the Metropolitan Police halt any prosecutions or proceedings against those involved in this entirely peaceful protest.

We further insist that the Metropolitan Police respects the right to protest and that it ceases to take instruction from those who are determined to back Israel’s genocidal actions, to maintain British state support for them, and to drive our movement off the streets.

Those who seek to do so will not succeed under any circumstances. We urge all those committed to preserving long-established freedoms to join us in protesting against this mounting campaign of state harassment.

https://palestinecampaign.org/palestine-coalition-statement-police-repression-of-18-january-protest

Keir Starmer confirms that his government is cnutier than Suella Braverman on killing the right to protest.
Keir Starmer confirms that his government is cnutier than Suella Braverman on killing the right to protest.
UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party's support for and complicity in Israel's genocide of Gaza.
UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
Continue ReadingPalestine Coalition Statement: Police repression of 18 January protest

BBC and Guardian editors held private meetings with Israeli General

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https://www.declassifieduk.org/bbc-guardian-editors-private-meetings-with-israeli-general-kohavi

General Aviv Kohavi led the IDF for four years up to January 2023. (Photo Ilan Assayag / Alamy)

DECLASSIFIED UK Exclusive: Former IDF chief of staff met with Britain’s top journalists to promote Israel’s war on Gaza.

Israel’s former top military officer, General Aviv Kohavi held private meetings with the editors of major British news organisations one month after the Gaza bombing began, Declassified can reveal.

The meetings took place with Katherine Viner, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Richard Burgess, director of news content at the BBC, and Roula Khalaf, editor of the Financial Times. 

Further meetings were due to be held with Sky News chairman David Rhodes at the Israeli embassy, and then shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, between 7 and 9 November 2023, according to Kohavi’s itinerary.

By this time, Israeli forces had killed over 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and Israeli officials had made several public statements of genocidal intent. Kohavi had only stepped down from running Israel’s military months earlier. 

During his tenure, he justified attacks on journalists, saying the soldiers who shot reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank “showed courage” and that he had not one “gram of regret” for flattening the Associated Press (AP) office in Gaza.

The information about General Kohavi’s visit comes in documents obtained in Israel under the Freedom of Information Act by lawyer Elad Man and seen by Declassified.

They reveal how Kohavi’s tour of Britain was planned with support from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), and Ministry of Defence.

The trip was specifically designed to take advantage of a perceived “reversal in the attitude of Western countries toward Israel [in light of] the severity of the events… of October 7”.

To this end, Kohavi was tasked with cultivating support for Israel as it escalated its brutal military offensive in Gaza.

…

Article continues at https://www.declassifieduk.org/bbc-guardian-editors-private-meetings-with-israeli-general-kohavi

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
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/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Continue ReadingBBC and Guardian editors held private meetings with Israeli General

British general’s secret visit to Israel ‘should be stopped’

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https://onaquietday.org/wp-admin/post-new.php

General Zachary Stenning is leading a UK military delegation to Israel. (Photo: Tim Ireland / Alamy)

Exclusive: UK military accused of giving a “fig leaf” to Israeli forces as another trip to Tel Aviv is uncovered.

A senior British soldier is heading to Israel for a briefing from the country’s military, despite it being under investigation for genocide and war crimes, Declassified has found.

The trip will be led by major general Zachary Stenning, a former commandant of Sandhurst officer academy.

He is now a director of Strategic Command, part of the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Known as StratCom, it describes its role as “learning and adapting to make Defence more lethal…We are the capabilities you don’t usually see. Or those you can’t.”

The trip is taking place just weeks after the Israeli military’s head of operations, General Oded Basyuk, had to be given immunity from prosecution to visit the MoD in London.

Israeli generals are afraid of being detained abroad after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over the siege of Gaza.

Business as usual

Although the UK government has banned the export of certain weapons to Israel, Declassified understands that the MoD is routinely conducting bilateral military engagement with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

John Deverell, a retired brigadier who was director of defence diplomacy at the MoD, told Declassified that British soldiers should not be visiting Israel at this time.

He said: “Our MoD should not have anything to do with their Israeli opposite numbers – and nor should British armed forces as a whole. 

“Any relationship between the two militaries is useful to the IDF because an onlooker can infer that the British Army agrees with how the IDF conducts operations. In effect, it gives a sort of fig leaf to the IDF. 

“But the danger to the British of the series of meetings that are apparently taking place is significant. At the least we are perceived as non-critical of the IDF. And at worst we may be seen as complicit in war crimes. 

…

Article continues at https://onaquietday.org/wp-admin/post-new.php

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
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/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Continue ReadingBritish general’s secret visit to Israel ‘should be stopped’

Efforts to displace Palestinians are in action in the West Bank, Israel media reports

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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Israeli army enters the city with tanks for the first time since 2002 following after the ceasefire and prisoner and hostages swap agreement in Gaza entered into force in Jenin, West Bank on February 23, 2025 [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]

Calls to displace Palestinians from Gaza are already being translated into action in the occupied West Bank, where the occupation army has forced tens of thousands of Palestinians to leave their homes, Haaretz reported today.

The Hebrew edition of the newspaper referred to the statements of the Israeli Defence Minister, Israel Katz, who proudly announced yesterday the goal of the operation that the army is waging in the occupied West Bank: the expulsion of the residents of the refugee camps.

The newspaper added that in the context of the Gaza Strip, they dream of transfer, but in the West Bank they are actually implementing it.

The minister added that “it is assumed that the 40,000 Palestinians who have already been expelled from the refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams will not be allowed to return there for at least a year.”

The newspaper said: “Katz’s statements completely contradict the official claim of the Israeli army since the beginning of the operation in the West Bank, which is that it is not evacuating the residents of the West Bank.”

According to the newspaper, “the residents of the refugee camps who were evacuated from their homes are taking refuge in the villages and towns in the area.”

Dozens of them sleep on the floors of temporary shelters run by local volunteers, while tens of thousands of them were forced to evacuate their homes quickly, without enough clothes, medicine or money. Children have not been to school for weeks.

It added that “the army is demolishing homes in refugee camps to widen roads, and has decided to tighten the atmosphere even more, as the army has brought its tanks into the Jenin refugee camp – for the first time in 20 years.”

The newspaper considered that “the army’s practices in the West Bank are the fruits of a campaign led by the settler leadership that has been pushing in these directions for more than a year, as the settlers have succeeded in turning the West Bank into a war zone in every sense of the word.”

Palestinians have reported being forced out of their homes by Israeli occupation forces, while others were used as human shields, then ordered to leave the refugee camp. One elderly blind man recounted how the army took over a building, brought him inside and locked him in a room with another family for two days without being able to communicate with anyone.

The newspaper stressed that

the rapid escalation in recent weeks –  is compensation for the Israeli far-right for the disappointment and grief caused by the prisoner exchange deal.

The newspaper said that “Israel, as usual, instead of solving the root problems of the conflict, is proving that it only understands force, and that it is only capable of short-term thinking.”

READ: White House backs Israel’s decision to delay release of Palestinian prisoners

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
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/O74hZCKKdpA
Continue ReadingEfforts to displace Palestinians are in action in the West Bank, Israel media reports

Calls for rights orgs to intervene to end torture of Palestinian prisoners

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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

A view of Ofer Prison located between Ramallah and Jerusalem as preparations for the release of Palestinian prisoners continue, on January 30, 2025. [Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]

The Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) renewed its demand that international human rights organisations take effective decisions to hold Israeli occupation officials accountable for committing crimes against Palestinian prisoners who are subject to systematic torture in Israeli prisons, the Palestinian Information Centre reported.

The PPS said in a statement today that Israeli practices of repression against prisoners have escalated significantly recently in Ofer Prison, as an extension of the policy of repression and raids, which reached its peak during the genocidal war on Gaza.

The PPS revealed testimonies from prisoners which were obtained by their lawyers, specifically regarding the attack on prisoners on the evening of 16 February when the Israeli Metzada prison forces stormed several sections in Ofer Prison, using police dogs and stun grenades to intimidate detainees. They assaulted the prisoners, injuring dozens of them.

The PPS indicated that the Israeli prison administration uses the cold weather to torture the prisoners, by refusing to allow the entry of adequate clothes and appropriate covers.

prisoner D.P. said: “The repression that is carried out in prisoners’ rooms has lately escalated. The last attack took place last Saturday, when jailers assaulted prisoners, beating them and wreaking havoc on the contents of their rooms.” He added that such attacks happen every two to three days.

In another testimony, prisoner G.M., who suffers from an injury, said the Metzada unit assaulted him and broke his walker, which he uses to get to the medical clinic.

A number of injured detainees told their lawyers that they were suffering from constant pain due to the lack of treatment, in light of the policy of medical neglect and the severe cold.

READ: Israeli police attack funeral procession of recently freed Palestinian

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
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/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Continue ReadingCalls for rights orgs to intervene to end torture of Palestinian prisoners