CAMPAIGNERS have condemned the Metropolitan Police’s U-turn on Palestine Action arrests after at least 18 protesters were held for defying the ban on Saturday.
They were nabbed in central London at a demonstration organised by Defend Our Juries (DOJ) in response to the Met’s shift in policy.
After the High Court ruled the ban to be unlawful in February, the London force, Britain’s largest, said it would not arrest people for showing support for Palestine Action, but last week the force said it had reversed its policy.
The Met said it would resume arresting protesters for holding signs in support of the direct action group until the government’s appeal to the High Court decision was heard.
DOJ had previously asked the force to clarify its policy regarding the direct action group after officers held a woman at the al-Quds Day protest for allegedly defying the ban, despite its own stated policy.
In response the activist group is organising a mass-participation event in London’s Trafalgar Square on Saturday April 11 to challenge the ban on Palestine Action and the government’s continued support of the genocide in Gaza.
…
The Met’s decision to resume arrests has also come under fire from leading law firm Hodge Jones & Allen LLP, which warned the force that any arrests would be unlawful.
Since the Home Office proscription of Palestine Action last year more than 2,700 people have been arrested.
Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’.Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/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.
Mourners carry the body of one of the journalists killed in the Israeli strike in south Lebanon during their funeral. Photograph: Ibrahim Amro/AFP/Getty Images
Lebanese government calls the killings a ‘blatant war crime’ while Israel says primary target was a Hezbollah ‘terrorist’
A funeral has taken place in Lebanon for three journalists killed by an Israeli strike on Saturday, after the Lebanese government called the killings a “blatant war crime”.
Ali Shoeib, of the Hezbollah-owned al-Manar television station, and Fatima Ftouni and her brother and cameraman Mohammed Ftouni, of the pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, were killed in the strike targeting their car.
Israel claimed the attack shortly afterwards, saying the target was Shoeib, whom it accused of being a Hezbollah “terrorist” in an intelligence unit who had reported on the locations of Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military provided no further evidence to support the claim and made no comment on the deaths of the other journalists.
Hundreds of people attended the funeral, where the bodies of Shoeib and Fatima Ftouni were draped in their channels’ logos and with bouquets of flowers.
…
Shoeib was a well-known war correspondent in Lebanon, where he reported for al-Manar for nearly three decades. His death was met with a wave of condolences from audiences and journalists in Lebanon, many of whom said he was considered a mentor figure in Lebanese journalism.
Fatima Ftouni had also been reporting from the frontlines of the Israel-Hezbollah war in recent days, filming in front of battles in the town of Taybeh, south Lebanon. Her own family had been killed in Israeli strikes weeks earlier.
Eighteen months earlier, she and her colleagues were struck by an Israeli bomb while they were sleeping in a hotel in south Lebanon. Ftouni survived but two of her colleagues did not. Commenting on the deaths of her colleagues at the time, Ftouni said: “It is the silence of the international community that let this happen.”
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Huge “No Kings” protests throughout the United States and a huge anti-Fascist protest in London yesterday.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Keir Starmer explains that UK is participating defensively in Trump and Israel’s criminal war for Israel’s genocidal expansion in Iran and states that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
A view of the US aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford at a US Navy base in Souda Bay, Crete, where it is set to undergo repairs on March 23, 2026. [Stefanos Rapanis – Anadolu Agency]
Americans have heard this script before. A president says he wants a deal, insists he does not want a wider war, and then quietly builds the military architecture for one anyway. That is where the United States now stands in its war with Iran. Even as Donald Trump talks about a possible settlement and claims there are “major points of agreement,” the Pentagon is preparing to send thousands more troops from the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East, adding to a military buildup that already looks less like leverage and more like preparation for a deeper phase of the war. A government serious about winding down a conflict does not keep expanding the force package behind it.
The gap between Washington’s words and Washington’s actions is no longer small enough to dismiss as ordinary diplomatic theater. Trump says contacts with Iran are promising. Tehran has publicly denied direct talks, and Reuters has reported that Iran’s negotiating position has hardened during the war, with demands for guarantees against future attacks and refusal to place new limits on its missile program. That does not look like a near-term diplomatic breakthrough. It looks like an administration using the language of negotiation to buy time while keeping military options open. The question is no longer whether Washington prefers a deal in the abstract. The question is whether “talks” are becoming political cover for continued escalation.
That matters because coalition reluctance does not usually restrain Washington. More often, it leaves Washington compensating with more American assets, more American risk, and eventually more American ownership of a war that was sold as limited.
There is another sign that this war is moving in a more dangerous direction: America is having trouble persuading others to own it. When Trump asked allies to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open, several of them declined to send ships. Japan and Australia publicly said they had no immediate plans to participate, and Reutersreported similar hesitation from other partners. That matters because coalition reluctance does not usually restrain Washington. More often, it leaves Washington compensating with more American assets, more American risk, and eventually more American ownership of a war that was sold as limited. A conflict that begins as a joint project can become an overwhelmingly American burden simply because nobody else wants to get pulled in deeper.
This is how mission creep actually happens. It rarely arrives with a formal declaration that the United States is entering a ground war. It comes in pieces: reinforcements to protect bases, troops to secure shipping lanes, special operations contingencies for sensitive sites, and a standing insistence that “all options remain on the table.” Reutersreported last week that U.S. officials were weighing reinforcements that could support operations connected to Hormuz and other possible next steps, while experts warned that securing Iran’s uranium stockpiles would be highly complex and risky even for special operations forces. That is not the language of a conflict staying neatly contained. It is the language of a war searching for its next rationale.
The American public, importantly, is not asking for this. A Reuters/Ipsos poll published last week found that 65 percent of Americans believe Trump will order troops into a large-scale ground war in Iran, but only 7 percent support such an idea. An AP-NORC poll published found that most Americans believe recent U.S. military action against Iran has gone too far, and about six in ten oppose deploying U.S. ground troops to fight there. Those numbers matter because they expose the fiction that a deeper war would rest on any real democratic consensus. Washington is not moving toward a broader conflict because the public has embraced one. It is moving there in spite of the public’s clear warning.
That should disturb Americans even if they have no sympathy at all for the Iranian government. One does not have to romanticise Tehran to see the danger of what Washington is doing. The United States and Israel may share the current war effort, but any ground phase would be paid for primarily by Americans, fought primarily by Americans, and politically owned in Washington long after today’s rhetoric about quick outcomes has faded. That is the part of “supporting an ally” that the White House prefers to leave vague. Air campaigns can be sold as controlled and temporary. Ground commitments are different. They create their own logic, their own momentum, and their own excuses for staying longer than promised.
Even now, after weeks of US-Israeli strikes, the Strait of Hormuz remains a live strategic problem, negotiations remain uncertain, and military planners are still talking in terms of options rather than outcomes.
Nor is there any reason to think a ground phase would solve the political problem that air power has failed to solve. Iran is not a target that can simply be bullied into strategic surrender by adding more American bodies to the region. Even now, after weeks of US-Israeli strikes, the Strait of Hormuz remains a live strategic problem, negotiations remain uncertain, and military planners are still talking in terms of options rather than outcomes. That is usually a sign that the advertised strategy has stalled. When that happens, Washington has a long habit of treating escalation not as proof of failure but as the remedy for failure. That is how bad wars become bigger wars.
What makes this moment especially dangerous is that the administration still wants the political benefits of sounding restrained while preparing for the military benefits of going further. It wants to say “deal” and move troops at the same time. It wants to claim this is not another open-ended American war while creating precisely the conditions from which open-ended American wars emerge. For Middle East Monitor readers, this should be understood clearly: Washington is not standing outside this conflict trying to calm it. It is deep inside it, helping shape the next phase while pretending the next phase may never come. If the White House truly wanted to prevent a ground war, it would stop building one. Until then, Americans should call this what it is—not prudence, not deterrence, but a familiar and dangerous drift toward a war the country has not chosen and does not want.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won.Keir Starmer explains that UK is participating defensively in Trump and Israel’s criminal war for Israel’s genocidal expansion in Iran and states that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Burned press equipment and belongings are seen at the site of an Israeli airstrike in the Jezzine district of southern Lebanon, where three journalists, including Ali Shuaib of Al Manar TV, Fatima Fetuni of Al Mayadeen and photojournalist Mohammed Fetuni, were killed after their vehicle was targeted, on March 28, 2026. [Ahmed Kaddoura – Anadolu Agency]
Three journalists were killed on Saturday when an Israeli airstrike targeted a vehicle they were traveling in near the city of Jezzine in southern Lebanon, according to an Anadolu correspondent, Anadolu reports.
The deceased include Al-Manar TV correspondent Ali Shuaib, Al-Mayadeen correspondent Fatima Fatouni, and a cameraman.
In a statement, the Israeli army admitted the killing of Ali Shuaib, but did not comment on the death of the other two journalists.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said the attack constitutes a “blatant crime that violates all norms” and called on international bodies to take action.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam also condemned the attack, urging respect for international law, according to the National News Agency.
Separately, the Syndicate of Workers in Visual and Audio Media in Lebanon said: “Targeting journalists in the field is a blatant attack on press freedom and a transparent attempt to silence free voices and obscure the serious human rights violations taking place.”
“This crime not only targets specific individuals but also the entire media community and all those who strive to reveal the truth to the public,” it added in a statement.
In a news conference, Information Minister Paul Morcos said that Lebanon is preparing to file a complaint with the UN Security Council over the attack.
Earlier, the National News Agency reported that an Israeli airstrike targeted a car on the Al-Barad road in Jezzine, without providing further details.
Since dawn on Saturday, Israel launched airstrikes and artillery attacks on 42 towns, cities, and areas in Lebanon, most of them in the south, according to the news agency.
The Israeli offensive against Lebanon, which began on March 2, has resulted in 1,142 deaths and 3,315 injuries, according to the latest figures from the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won.Keir Starmer explains that UK is participating defensively in Trump and Israel’s criminal war for Israel’s genocidal expansion in Iran and states that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
