Médecins Sans Frontières joined other organisations in Westminster on 25 June 2025 to protest over the deaths of children in Gaza. Photograph: Andy Aitchison
We have warned the government repeatedly: the response has been pathetic. Britain has a duty to act morally, and stop supporting this genocide.
Dr Natalie Roberts is the executive director of Médecins Sans Frontières UK
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At the beginning of April, we at MSF UK wrote to the foreign secretary, David Lammy, detailing our first-hand observations in Gaza. We described the massive influxes of wounded patients and dead bodies being received by MSF teams in medical facilities across Gaza on 18 March, as Israeli forces unleashed attacks of unprecedented intensity, shattering the short-lived ceasefire. We explained that MSF medical staff and their patients had already had to evacuate 17 health facilities and had endured a massive number of violent incidents, including airstrikes damaging and destroying hospitals and health facilities, tanks opening fire on humanitarian shelters, ground offensives being conducted in medical facilities, and humanitarian convoys and ambulances being fired upon by the Israeli military. We noted that not a single hospital in Gaza was currently fully functional, and that about half of them were no longer functioning at all. And we described the complete siege imposed by the Israeli authorities on Gaza.
We noted that this evidence was consistent with the description of ethnic cleansing and genocide provided by legal experts and human rights organisations. We requested a meeting to brief the foreign secretary further and to hear what concrete actions the UK planned, to hold Israel to account for its atrocities against the Palestinian people.
We did not receive a response.
So on 7 May, MSF wrote an open letter to the prime minister describing the use of starvation and collective punishment as weapons of war by the Israeli government against an entire population. We implored the UK government to uphold its obligations as a permanent member of the UN security council to act under international humanitarian law to protect all civilians in Gaza. We also called on the UK government to publicly condemn the Israeli government for the atrocities it is inflicting on the people of Gaza. We warned that failure to take immediate action and to adopt a clear position on these extensively documented and flagrant war crimes and breaches of international law would leave the UK government at high risk of charges of complicity.
We did not receive a response.
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We can only conclude that the UK government just does not want to admit what everybody else can see: that genocide is being committed in Gaza, and it is being committed with the military, diplomatic and material support of the UK.
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Vote Labour for Genocide.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect 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.UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Police officers remove a person after they took part in a protest in Parliament Square, London, to call for de-proscription of Palestine Action, July 12, 2025
MORE than 70 people were arrested on Saturday during protests demanding the reversal of a ban on Palestine Action.
Demonstrators held signs reading, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” despite warnings from police that public displays of support could violate terrorism legislation.
Police made 42 arrests in London, 13 in Cardiff, 16 in Manchester and one in Leeds.
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Another protester in London,Kris Welch, a retired special educational needs co-ordinator, said: “My father was in the Polish resistance and wanted by the Nazis and Russians.
“I grew up with the knowledge that there are some lines that cannot be crossed, and people have to stand up, whatever the consequences to them personally.
“I cannot stand by when a genocide is taking place, I cannot stand by while those who want to stop the genocide are branded as terrorists, and I cannot stand by while my government is actively complicit in the Palestinian genocide.”
Vote Labour for Genocide.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect 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.UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Palestine Action supporters outside the high court in London on 4 July. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA
Letter calls group’s proscription under anti-terrorism laws ‘major assault on our freedoms’
The singer Charlotte Church and veteran peace campaigners are among hundreds who have signed a letter describing the move to ban the group Palestine Action as “a major assault on our freedoms”.
Trade unionists, activists and politicians have also added their names to the letter opposing the group’s proscription under anti-terrorism laws last week.
Church said: “I sign this letter because history shows us that when people stand up to injustice, those in power often reach for the same old playbook: label dissent as dangerous, criminalise protest, and try to silence movements for change by branding them as extremists or terrorists.
“From the suffragettes to the civil rights movement, what was once condemned as radical disruption is now celebrated as moral courage. We must remember this pattern – and refuse to let our rights be eroded by fear. This is not new, and we will not be silenced.”
“By signing this letter I am not inviting support for any proscribed organisation – people can make their own minds up – but I am making a clear and strong stand against the abuse and misuse of terrorism laws to malign direct action protest.”
A ban on Palestine Action, which uses direct action to mainly target Israeli weapons factories in the UK and their supply chain, was voted through by parliament this month. Being a member of, or showing support for the group is now a criminal offence after a last-minute legal challenge to suspend the group’s proscription failed.
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 obect 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.UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Weeks after Israeli forces abducted the Madleen’s crew in international waters, the Freedom Flotilla is ready to launch its next mission, the Handala.
Only weeks after the crew of the boat Madleen was intercepted and abducted in international waters by Israeli occupation forces, the Freedom Flotilla coalition is preparing to set sail again. The Handala, carrying essential supplies including food and medicines, will begin its voyage from Italy on July 13, with 18 crew members on board, including trade unionists and parliamentarians such as US labor organizer Christian Smalls, French MEP Emma Fourreau, and MP Gabrielle Cathala.
Breaking the siege for Gaza’s children
Michele Borgia, spokesperson for Freedom Flotilla Italy, told Peoples Dispatch that beyond the Flotilla’s consistent message of solidarity with the Palestinian people under siege, this mission has an additional focus: the children of Gaza. Thousands of Palestinian children, including babies, have been killed in Israel’s ongoing attacks, Borgia warned. The ship’s cargo includes baby formula. The name of the ship, Handala, is a reference to the cartoon character who turns his back on the world in protest until Palestine is free.
Since Israel broke the ceasefire in March and imposed a blockade on all humanitarian aid to Gaza, children have starved as formula and food remain out of reach, Borgia continues. “There are also many reports of children and parents being targeted while waiting in line for aid, specifically baby formula.”
When announcing the mission, Freedom Flotilla wrote: “The children of Gaza – who make up over half the population – have been living under a brutal blockade and siege for their entire lives. Since October 2023, over 50,000 have been killed or injured, tens of thousands orphaned, and nearly a million forcibly displaced and homeless. All now face famine, disease, and trauma few of us can imagine. This mission is for them.”
The specific link to Gaza’s children has also prompted a call to action for southern Italy. Puglia was the first in the country to officially support severing ties with Israel, Borgia points out. Now, children from Puglia have been invited to send drawings to children in Gaza. These will be carried aboard the Handala as an additional message of solidarity.
Handala’s political message
Borgia says that the supplies on board the Flotilla’s ships are far from enough to meet the needs of the people in Gaza after months of blockade. “Critics, including Israel, never miss the chance to point out that we’re carrying so little, asking what good it can do,” he said. “But they fail to mention that, for example, last year, when we organized the delivery of thousands of tons of essential supplies, those shipments were blocked too.”
The mission of the Handala, like that of the Madleen and earlier voyages, goes beyond delivering material aid, he adds – it is, in many ways, a political statement. “For years, Israel has undermined Palestinians’ ability to fish or farm,” Borgia said. “This has forced Palestinians in Gaza into complete dependency on aid, with devastating consequences for their sense of dignity and self-sufficiency.”
In this context, as governments remain silent in the face of Israel’s genocide, ongoing occupation and other crimes, Freedom Flotilla aims to break the silence. “Where governments fail, we, the people, are there to act,” Borgia emphasized.
Freedom Flotilla Italy has taken an important role in organizing the Handala’s departure, coordinating aspects of technical and logistical preparations. The chapter draws links to Palestine solidarity mobilizations in the early 2000s, including the work of journalist and activist Vittorio Arrigoni, who joined a mission that successfully reached Gaza. “Ever since then, Israel has cracked down on similar missions,” Borgia noted, referencing the violent obstruction of recent sailings, including the Madleen.
Many of the Freedom Flotilla’s crew members are still from Europe and North America. “Israel tends to hesitate a bit more before attacking international activists,” Borgia said. But as the world witnessed with the Madleen, even that doesn’t stop them from kidnapping crews from international waters and subjecting them to abuse. Meanwhile, governments from which the activists originate largely remain silent, including Italy, Borgia says. “Our ministers shake hands with ICC suspect Benjamin Netanyahu, but they say nothing about Palestine.”
Trade unionists on board
He also pointed out that Italian companies like defense giant Leonardo continue arms exports to Israel, despite constitutional prohibitions to do so. Others taking part in the mission have echoed similar critiques. US union leader Christian Smalls announced his participation in the Handala mission together with an appeal for an end to US support for Israel. “It’s not just the government,” he wrote. “Our own US labor union organizations that are supposed to fight for justice are complicit.”
In his statement, Smalls denounced the silence of some major US unions on the genocide in Gaza and urged them to listen to their members. “The killing of innocent people does not go beyond the scope of labor,” Smalls said on social media. “I am calling on US labor to take a stand: shut down all arms shipments to Israel, pass ceasefire resolutions immediately, and get on the right side of history. We will not be intimidated. We will not be silent.”
Across Europe, trade unions are increasingly endorsing pro-Palestinian resolutions under pressure from their rank and file. In many ways, this mirrors the experience of the Freedom Flotilla that Borgia describes: strong grassroots support and growing engagement from communities, met with indifference or hostility from the political class. “But that hasn’t stopped us,” he said. “Many of our core organizers are Palestinian, and when we talk to people in Palestine, they always urge us to keep speaking out.”
As the Handala prepares to set sail, its crew is determined to keep the focus on Gaza. And more ships are being prepared to do the same
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect 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.
Police officers remove a person after they took part in a protest in Parliament Square, London, to call for de-proscription of Palestine Action, July 12, 2025
