Palestine campaigners blockade an Israeli-owned Elbit factory at Shenstone in Staffordshire, October 29, 2024
PALESTINE campaigners blockaded and closed an Israeli-owned British arms factory today.
UAV Engines at Shenstone in Staffordshire is one of five British factories owned by Israel’s biggest arms manufacturer Elbit Systems.
The factory makes engines for military drones used by Israel in its slaughter in Gaza.
Weekly protests are mounted outside the factory by local Palestine campaigners supported by Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine (GMFP) activists.
John Nicholson of GMFP told the Morning Star: “There are 200 people outside Elbit’s Shenstone factory accompanied, ridiculously, by dozens of police officers and police cars.
Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that his active support and that of UK’s air force 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/O74hZCKKdpAUK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspeding 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.
A worker with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and displaced Palestinians check the damage inside a U.N. school-turned-shelter near Gaza City after a reported Israeli strike on October 19, 2024. (Photo: Omar al-Qattaa/AFP via Getty Images)
“This legislation not only contravenes the basic principles of human rights that led to the U.N. General Assembly’s founding of UNRWA, but also violates a range of Israel’s international legal obligations.”
Over a year into Israel’s obliteration of the Gaza Strip, Israeli lawmakers faced sharp criticism on Monday after voting for a pair of bills targeting the United Nations agency responsible for humanitarian aid in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.
The first bill, which says that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) “will not operate any missions, won’t provide any service, and won’t hold any activity—directly or indirectly—in the sovereign territory of the state of Israel,” passed the Israeli parliament 92-10.
The second legislative proposal—under which the Israeli agency that handles humanitarian issues, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), will have to cut off contact with UNRWA—passed the 120-member Knesset 87-9. Critics called the votes “grotesque” and “outrageous.”
The Israel-based organization Adalah said in a statement that “despite widespread international pressure and condemnation, the Knesset has nearly unanimously passed two bills aimed at dismantling UNRWA, all while Israel continues its genocidal assault on Gaza and intensifies violence across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
“This legislation threatens a vital lifeline for over 2.5 million Palestinian refugees throughout the occupied Palestinian territory,” the group warned. “It represents a deliberate attempt to fundamentally undermine UNRWA and its essential mission of supporting the relief, education, and human development of Palestinian refugees. Specifically, the laws aim to strip Palestinians—who were forcibly displaced from their homes during the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 war—of their status as refugees and their right of return.”
The United Nations General Assembly created UNRWA in 1949, in the wake of the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” when more than 750,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homeland to establish the modern state of Israel—whose officials have claimed without providing evidence that a dozen of the agency’s 13,000 staffers in Gaza were involved with the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
“This legislation not only contravenes the basic principles of human rights that led to the U.N. General Assembly’s founding of UNRWA, but also violates a range of Israel’s international legal obligations, including those under the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” said Adalah. “The international community must hold Israel accountable.”
The US allegedly asked Israel not to ban UNRWA, but it did so anyway.
The Biden-Harris administration must take real action to stop Israel from killing even more Palestinians.
Although Israel faces a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its war on Hamas-controlled Gaza—which has killed at least 43,020 people and injured another 101,110 since last October—governments around the world have not acted to stop the bloodshed. The U.S. Congress and President Joe Biden’s administration have even provided Israel with billions of dollars in military aid and blocked cease-fire resolutions at the United Nations.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration finally threatened to cut off weapons if the Israeli government does not take “urgent and sustained actions” to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza within 30 days. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s letter specifically raised concerns about the legislation that passed the Knesset Monday.
Asked about the Israeli bills on Monday, Matthew Miller, a U.S. State Department spokesperson frequently slammed for his statements about Israel, pointed to the secretaries’ criticism of the legislation in the recent letter and acknowledged that UNRWA serves the West Bank and plays “an irreplaceable role” in Gaza, where Palestinians are starving to death.
.@leobruneau asked StateSpox about Israel voting to ban UNRWA earlier today.
Miller: The passage of this legislation could have implications under US law…UNRWA plays a critical role in delivering humanitarian assistance
Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s regional director in the Middle East and North Africa, said Monday that “Israel has bombed Palestinians to death, maimed them, starved them, and is now ridding them of their biggest lifeline of aid. Piece by piece, Israel is systemically dismantling Gaza as a land that is autonomous and liveable for Palestinians.”
“Its banning of UNRWA today is condemnable and another step in this crime,” she argued. “The decision will further undermine the ability of the international community to provide sufficient humanitarian aid and to save lives in any safe, independent, and impartial way. UNRWA was not only the biggest and most established agency that has been delivering aid and sustenance to the people of Gaza for years, it was also a thread that connected them in some hope of solidarity and security to the United Nations.”
“We are in no doubt that Israel and its allies are fully aware of the terrible consequences that this decision will have on Palestinians living in Gaza, many of whom are already starving,” she added. “We join others in warning again that this will result in more death, more suffering, and more forced displacement of people from their besieged homeland. It is impossible not to believe that this is their aim.”
Leading up to the votes, human rights advocates have been sounding the alarm. On Saturday, over 50 groups including Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, and ActionAid released a joint statement demanding action and warning that “dismantling UNRWA would be catastrophic for Palestinians especially in Gaza and the West Bank as they are deprived of essentials such as food, water, medical aid, education, and protection. It will also have catastrophic consequences for millions of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, where essential humanitarian aid is crucial for both the refugees and the host communities.”
How can the Israelis remain a #UN member when they not only violate the most basic laws of the @UN Charter but declare UN Secretary General @antonioguterres persona non grata and expel the UN refugee agency that millions of #Palestine refugees depend on, @UNRWA, as well as… https://t.co/8VZat2Gqt3
Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA commissioner-general, delivered a similar warning on social media Monday, declaring that the Knesset action not only “is unprecedented and sets a dangerous precedent” but “it opposes the U.N. Charter and violates the state of Israel’s obligations under international law.”
“This is the latest in the ongoing campaign to discredit UNRWA and delegitimize its role towards providing human-development assistance and services to Palestine Refugees,” he continued. “These bills will only deepen the suffering of Palestinians, especially in Gaza where people have been going through more than a year of sheer hell.”
“It will deprive over 650,000 girls and boys there from education, putting at risk an entire generation of children,” Lazzarini added. “These bills increase the suffering of the Palestinians and are nothing less than collective punishment.”
Smoke rises from buildings hit in Israeli airstrikes in Tyre, southern Lebanon, October 28, 2024
THE Israeli military was accused of targeting civilians after it detained dozens of Palestinians in a raid on a hospital in northern Gaza over the weekend.
Today Israeli war planes continued their attack on the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre while Egypt led moves towards a temporary ceasefire in the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon.
Israeli forces raided Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya on Friday, detaining 44 male staff, according to the World Health Organisation. Palestinian medical officials said the hospital, which was treating some 200 patients, was heavily damaged in the raid.
Israel has raided several hospitals in Gaza over the course of the war, accusing Hamas and other resistance fighters of using them for military purposes.
Palestinian medical officials deny those allegations and accuse the military of deliberately targeting civilians.
Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been fundamentally dishonest in obscuring the extent of his and the UK military’s active support for Israel’s genocide. Starmer has been urging Israel to be restrained while secretly Israel would not have been able to conduct it’s genocidal campaign without UK support. The UK air force has conducted 49% of spy flights over Gaza identifying targets, UK’s 77 Brigade specialising in psychological warfare has been advising Israel – no doubt about all the lies that have enabled hospitals to be destroyed – and weapons have been supplied to Israel through UK bases in Cyprus. It is now revealed that Starmer & Co are intimately involved in the slaughter of non-combatants, aid workers, journalists and health workers and in the deliberate starvation inflicted on Gaza.
Starmer has proved himself to be totally unfit to be UK’s Prime Minister. We need him and his fellow Zionist conspirators to be tried and convicted of genocide and war crimes.
10.15p.m. Israel’s Gaza genocide and wider militarism should be regarded as mostly a joint venture between United States, United Kingdom and Israel. The parties cannot be distinguished. In UK current Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy – who very recently claimed that it was not a genocide – are every bit as guilty of war crimes as the Israelis.
A picture shows the damage to an ambulance at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on October 26, 2024. (Photo: /AFP via Getty Images)
“Such blatant disregard for basic humanity and for the laws of war must stop,” the official said.
Israel could kill everyone left in Northern Gaza if its assault on the enclave continues, a United Nations relief official warned on Saturday.
U.N. Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Joyce Msuya also called for an end to the Israeli attack.
“What Israeli forces are doing in besieged North Gaza cannot be allowed to continue,” Msuya said.
“Instead of receiving aid, we are receiving tanks.”
In particular, Msuya emphasized Israel’s targeting of hospitals and shelters and interference with relief work.
“Hospitals have been hit, and health workers have been detained. Shelters have been emptied and burned down. First responders have been prevented from saving people from under the rubble. Families have been separated, and men and boys are being taken away by the truckload,” she said.
Msuya estimated that Israel’s actions in the north had killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands. According to Al Jazeera, an Israeli siege on the north that began earlier in October has killed around 640.
“The entire population of North Gaza is at risk of dying,” Msuya said. “Such blatant disregard for basic humanity and for the laws of war must stop.”
The U.N. official’s remarks came as Israeli troops withdrew from a deadly attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, which Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum said “is considered a medical lifeline for the two-thirds of Palestinians in northern Gaza.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had surrounded the hospital for days before entering and opening fire on Thursday and Friday, the Gaza Health Ministry and the hospital’s director told CNN.
“Instead of receiving aid, we are receiving tanks,” hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya said in a video.
Medics told Al Jazeera that the IDF had detained 44 members of the hospital team, later releasing 14 of them. The director of field hospitals in Gaza, Marwan Al-Hams, said that soldiers had also destroyed medications as they left, “preventing us from saving the wounded.”
“It is a catastrophic situation as patients and the wounded are left on the floor without any medical attention,” hospital spokesperson Hisham Sakani told Al Jazeera. “We are facing grave dangers, and here I am once again sending an SOS to the whole world. We pray to God almighty our plight comes to an end and Israeli massacres [are] ceased.”
“The entire population north of Gaza Strip are now without any medical service after all the hospitals have been destroyed and forced out of operation,” Sahani continued.
Msuya’s statement also came a day after U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called Friday’s attacks on northern Gaza the “darkest moment” of the war.
“The Israeli Government’s policies and practices in northern Gaza risk emptying the area of all Palestinians,” Türk said. “We are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes, including potentially extending to crimes against humanity.”
Msuya and Türk’s statements reflect the opinion of human rights experts that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The International Court of Justice is still considering the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel. To date, the Israeli assault has killed at least 42,924 people and wounded 100,833, but the true numbers could be much higher.
Emergency medical doctor Mads Gilbert, who has volunteered in both Gaza and Lebanon, criticized Western governments for allowing the raid on Kamal Adwan, as well as Israel’s systematic attacks on healthcare workers and facilities in Gaza.
“We need an additional factor to understand why this has been allowed to go on, and that is actually that the Palestinian people are defined as under-humans,” Gilbert told Al Jazeera. “We would never have allowed this to happen, for example, in Ukraine. Almost 250,000 people in the northern part of Gaza have now no healthcare, and that in itself is part of the genocide.”
The Institute for Middle East Understanding called on both the international community and the U.S. government to respond to Israel’s violations of international law.
“The Biden-Harris administration must stop the flow of U.S. weapons to Israel which constitutes a necessary step to halting Israel’s ongoing war crimes,” IMEU wrote on social media Saturday. “It’s time for an arms embargo now.”
