Resident doctors on the picket line outside Leeds General Infirmary, on the first day of a five-day walkout over pay and jobs, which could see up to half of the medical workforce in England could stop work, December 17, 2025
RESIDENT doctors are keen to resume talks with the government to avoid further strikes but “must see less name-calling and more deal-making” from Health Secretary Wes Streeting, said the British Medical Association (BMA) today.
Medics will enter 2026 a “renewed can-do spirit,” added the union as they returned to work after a five-day walkout in England as part of their long-running dispute over jobs and pay.
The BMA’s resident doctors committee chair Dr Jack Fletcher said: “What we need is a proper fix to this jobs crisis and a credible path towards restoring the lost value of the profession.
“That must mean the creation of genuinely new jobs, and it could involve a responsible multi-year approach to restoring doctors’ pay.
“Those are solutions that mean we can build out our future workforce to end the current crisis, solutions which are very much within government’s power.”
The strike followed 83 per cent of resident doctors voting to reject a government offer for more specialist training places but no extra pay. Turnout was 65 per cent.
Dr Fletcher said that medics are “frustrated by the year that has just passed,” which saw Mr Streeting compare them with juvenile delinquents and “moaning minnies.”
“There have been plenty of opportunities for strike action to have been avoided but all too often the government has moved too little and too late,” he added.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Overview of the courtroom at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands on 22 April, 2024 [Selman Aksünger/Anadolu Agency]
The international court of justice (ICJ) announced on Tuesday that Belgium has joined the legal case brought by South Africa against Israel, accusing it of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Several countries had already joined the case before Belgium, including Brazil, Ireland, Bolivia, Colombia, Libya, Spain and Mexico, at the United Nations’ highest court.
In a ruling issued in January 2024, around four months after the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the court called on Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under genocide. The court warned of a “real and imminent risk” of “irreparable harm” to Palestinians.
The ICJ also issued provisional measures ordering Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, prevent incitement to genocide and punish those responsible. Israel has so far failed to comply with these orders.
Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza say they are continuing efforts to complete the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, which began on 10 October this year, by searching for the body of the last Israeli soldier in their possession. At the same time, Israel is accused of continuing to violate the agreement and failing to implement its terms, especially those related to the first phase.
Since the ceasefire took effect on 10 October, Israel has killed at least 406 Palestinians and injured 1,118 others in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the territory.
The ministry added that, since the outbreak of the war on 7 October 2023, the death toll has reached at least 70,942 Palestinians, with 171,195 others wounded.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz in Washington, United States on July 18, 2025. [Yasin Öztürk – Anadolu Agency]
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday vowed that Tel Aviv will never fully withdraw from the Gaza Strip or occupied Syrian territories, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported, Anadolu reports.
“We are located deep inside Gaza and we will never leave all of Gaza,” Katz told a press conference in the Beit El settlement near Ramallah in the central West Bank
He also pledged to establish new military bases in northern Gaza, instead of the settlements that were evacuated after the Israeli withdrawal in 2005.
“When the time comes, in northern Gaza … we will build Nahal units instead of the (Israeli) communities that were displaced,” he said, praising the incumbent Israeli cabinet as a “settlement” government.
Nahal sites are a military program in which groups of young Israelis volunteer together and later form civilian communities, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz.
According to the Times of Israel portal, Katz’s remarks about building settlements in northern Gaza pose a challenge to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Washington. The premier is expected to visit the US later this month for talks with US President Donald Trump.
Although the Israeli government has not issued clarification regarding Katz’s statements, settler leaders and opponents viewed it as a call for settlement building.
Katz’s office, however, clarified in a statement that the government does not intend to establish any settlements in the Gaza Strip.
It claimed that the defense minister’s reference to setting up Nahal outposts in northern Gaza “were made solely in a security context.”
Around 750,000 illegal Israeli settlers live in hundreds of settlements across the West Bank, including 250,000 in East Jerusalem. Illegal settlers carry out daily attacks against Palestinians with the aim of forcibly displacing them.
Regarding Israeli violations of Syrian sovereignty, Katz said: “We will not move an inch from Syria,” without providing further details.
Syrian government data shows that since December 2024, Israel has carried out over 1,000 airstrikes on Syria and more than 400 cross-border raids into the southern provinces.
After the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in late 2024, Israel expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights by seizing the demilitarized buffer zone, a move that violated a 1974 agreement with Syria.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Metropolitan Police officers form a cordon to prevent hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists and trade unionists leaving following a blockade of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to demand that the UK government ceases arms sales to Israel on 28th November 2024 in London, United Kingdom. [Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images]
When the Metropolitan Police declared it would arrest anyone chanting “globalise the intifada” after the Bondi Beach killings in Australia, it did more than just shift the boundaries of public order policing.
It blurred the crucial line between violent incitement and political expression, while openly revealing its own partiality.
Within days, two people were detained in London for simply shouting “intifada” at a protest. This is not about managing risk; it is a blunt attempt to muzzle anti-genocide activism.
Two facts should expose ministers and senior police officers’ inequity.
First, Australian investigators have identified the Bondi attack as inspired by the Islamic State group (IS), not a Palestinian-organised act. Yet, in Britain, politicians, Israeli embassy officials, and media voices have rushed to tie Bondi to a Palestinian protest slogan, offering no evidence but plenty of noise.
Second, our criminal law already contains clear thresholds for when speech becomes criminal. Encouragement of terrorism requires a statement likely to be understood as a direct or indirect call to commit terrorist offences (Terrorism Act), and prosecutions for racially or religiously aggravated public-order offences rest on harm, intent and context (Crime and Disorder Act 1998).
The Crown Prosecution Service and the Terrorism Act set those tests. They are not suggestions to be ignored simply because some elite and lobby groups in the country support illegal Israeli actions.
Banning or policing a slogan by decree turns ambiguity into a weapon.
“Intifada” is an Arabic word, not an Islamic one, meaning “shake off”. In Palestine, it surged in 1987 as a rallying cry to shake off or rise up against Israeli colonial occupation.
Slogans are the language of frustration, not tidy definitions for opponents to twist. When authorities adopt the most hostile interpretation, it paves the way for racist policing and a slide toward authoritarianism.
In Hong Kong in 2019, protesters were arrested for chanting “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” because the Chinese government branded “revolution” as sedition. Now, British police and the government treat “intifada” the same way.
Criminalising the word intifada is only possible because Palestinians have been racialised within the Israeli Zionist framework, which filters their language and political expression through Israeli racist and colonialist lenses.
So a slogan calling for an end to genocide and occupation – actions illegal under international law – is projected as “violent”. The slogan intifada can only be construed as violent to those determined to keep violence alive.
Banning a slogan also has a chilling effect, making it harder for peaceful campaigns to mobilise.
In fact, the repression of the right to a slogan saps organisations that rely on open, public participation while doing little to deter rogue, clandestine individuals.
The predictable result of the ban is the extermination of peaceful mobilisation and the further radicalisation of rogue individuals. Either outcome should make democratic politicians uneasy.
Deeply biased
A grotesque double standard is at play. The new policing stance echoes the demands of pro-Israeli lobbyists and Zionist interests eager to equate a vague slogan with violence.
Meanwhile, British citizens who aid genocide with weapons, money, or rhetoric are often excused as merely expressing political views or grief.
Police actions are both disastrous and deeply biased. The government is suppressing genuine solidarity with an occupied people, while tolerating rhetoric and actions that fuel ethnic hatred, genocide and daily violence against Palestinians.
This selective zeal of suppressing anything highlighting Israeli violations shatters any claim to impartiality and reinforces the charge of institutional racism.
Policing slogans hands a strategic victory to those eager to delegitimise marginalised, oppressed and underprivileged voices.
Hong Kong showed how Chinese authorities seized on a slogan, exaggerated its most alarming meaning, and used it to justify prosecutions that suffocated dissent.
London is following the same script – stoke fear, blur the line between protest and terror and make arrests routine. The end result is a democracy that punishes words while quietly supporting violence abroad.
If governments and police genuinely feared violence on our streets, they would follow the evidence.
They would investigate those British citizens who travel to fight, stop sending weapons to parties accused of international crimes and prosecute those backing illegal occupation, starvation and genocide, instead of criminalising vague political speech that calls for justice and peace.
The solution is both simple and urgent. Police chiefs must show how their new approach aligns with the legal standards set by parliament and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Ministers must resist turning politics into a security game to please powerful lobbies. Courts must remember that criminal law is not a stage for political drama.
Democracy endures because we tolerate uncomfortable, even ugly, speech. Democracy withers when the state decides which Arabic words are dangerous and whose voices are silenced.
We all agree that violent terrorism and hate must be eradicated. That is exactly why the law must be applied fairly.
Arresting people for chanting a vague slogan like “globalise the intifada”, without any plan for violence, is repression masquerading as public safety, and it is anti-Palestinian racism.
This article was first published at Middle East Eye on 23 December 2025
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.
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/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Burhanettin Duran in Antalya, Turkiye on April 13, 2025. [Hakan Nural – Anadolu Agency]
Turkey has rejected comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accusing Ankara of harbouring “imperial ambitions”, describing the remarks as a cheap tactic aimed at diverting attention from Israel’s crimes in the region.
Burhanettin Duran, head of the Turkish presidency’s communications directorate, said on Tuesday that Israel’s “hysterical approach” to Turkey’s growing power and influence was “ridiculous”, adding that Ankara would continue to stand firmly with those seeking peace and stability.
Duran made the comments in a social media post responding to statements by Netanyahu during a summit held in Jerusalem on Monday, attended by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.
He said Israel’s long-standing hysterical approach, as a destabilizing force in the region, towards Turkey’s influence “can only be described as ridiculous”, adding that under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has become a guarantor of peace and stability.
Duran strongly criticised Netanyahu’s government, saying it had brought “blood and tears” to the region. He said Israel continues to act as an occupying power in Palestine and Syria, while attempting to conceal “expansionist ambitions under the banner of national security”.
He said Israeli officials’ references to the “imperial ambitions of others” amounted to a glaring contradiction, particularly in light of the perpetration of one of the most horrific genocides in history.
Duran said Israel has launched attacks on seven countries in the Middle East over the past two years, adding that Netanyahu’s government has been “a disaster in every sense of the word”, not only for the region but also for Israeli society.
He accused Israel of trying to divert attention from its actions by attacking Turkey, stressing that Ankara would not be deterred from supporting the Palestinian people.
“We in Turkey will continue to stand firmly with all those who seek peace and stability,” Duran said, adding that such remarks would not prevent Turkey from backing “our Palestinian brothers”.
He concluded by saying that peace would ultimately prevail, despite efforts to undermine it.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.
Resident doctors on the picket line outside Leeds General Infirmary, on the first day of a five-day walkout over pay and jobs, which could see up to half of the medical workforce in England could stop work, December 17, 2025
