Heba Shakura mourns her son Islam Abu Mahdi who was killed in an Israeli army air strike, during his funeral at the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, April 28, 2025
STUC to call on British government to end arms sales to Israel and the Scottish government to end enterprise grants for weapons manufacturers
THE final session of this year’s STUC passed seven motions in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Gaza today.
After attempts at compositing the motions failed, each passed individually, meaning the STUC will now call on the British government to end arms sales to Israel and the Scottish government to ensure no more Scottish Enterprise grants are handed over to weapons manufacturers.
More than £3 million of Scottish government cash has been handed over to manufacturers such as BAE Systems, Leonardo and Raytheon since 2023, while the firms continue to supply the Israeli military’s assault on Gaza. PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote told delegates: “We cannot be bystanders, we cannot walk by on the other side as we witness what is now widely accepted as a genocide. “The ICJ has ruled there is a plausible case, and Amnesty International have now confirmed that.“Fifty-eight years of illegal occupation, decades of settlement building, an ethnic cleansing, Israel’s Gaza onslaught has killed at least 60,000 people since 2023, and the Lancet has estimated the real figure could be 180,000 dead.
UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army 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.
Gideon Saar met with David Lammy on Tuesday (Image: NQ)
DAVID Lammy has met with Israel’s foreign minister during a secret visit to the UK.
Gideon Saar visited the UK on Tuesday in a meeting which was not officially announced, only confirmed to The National following reports from the Middle East Eye.
Saar … was originally meant to visit the UK in March but this was postponed when Israel renewed its assault on Gaza, breaking the tense ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
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Campaigner Gary Spedding told The National that the UK Government‘s decision to welcome Saar demonstrated it was “complicit in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people”
Spedding said: “This visit by Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, comes at a time when Israel has resumed its wanton slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
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/QILgUHrdWREGenocide 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
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.
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/O74hZCKKdpAUK 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
Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces use tear gas to disperse a protest against their security operation, in Jenin in the Israel-occupied West Bank, on December 16, 2024 [JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP via Getty Images]
The latest news about the Palestinian Authority’s so-called “Protecting the Homeland” operation in the Jenin refugee camp paints a grim picture. Nine Palestinians have been killed in the ongoing crackdown which began on 5 December, including a young journalist, Shatha Al-Sabbagh.
The campaign, as reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, has, not surpisingly, received a stamp of approval from the Israeli occupation army, which seems content with the PA’s performance. Meanwhile, Israel’s Channel 14confirmed that the occupation regime has issued a clear deadline for the PA to finish the task of effectively eradicating what remains of legitimate resistance in Jenin, in the name of ending “lawlessness” and apprehending “outlaws”.
It is an irony that has become all too familiar: the Palestinian entity that was supposed to represent the will of the people and lead them towards freedom has become complicit in crushing resistance in one of the most marginalised and impoverished areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, all while serving the interests of the occupation state. This is the heart of the Palestinian paradox in the West Bank.
For years, the PA has demanded unflinching obedience from the Palestinian people in the name of preparing Palestine for sovereignty and statehood. Yet, as the years have passed, this pledge has slipped further and further away. In its place, the PA has become complicit in the expansion of Israel’s territorial control and the erosion of Palestinian rights. This might be a difficult conclusion to digest, but the killing of innocent Palestinians in Jenin at the hands of Palestinian security forces, while Israel and its settlers are cracking down on Palestinians elsewhere in the West Bank, should be all the proof needed to support such a conclusion.
Moreover, the PA’s strategy of appeasing Israel through “security coordination” has done little to hinder Israel’s systematic land grab and the continued construction of illegal settlements. On the contrary, such “coordination” has emboldened Israel and its lawless settlers.
The PA has become a tool of the Israeli occupation
What is perhaps more damning is the fact that the PA has often become an active participant in the Israeli oppression of Palestinians, as is happening in Jenin today. In its role as an enforcer of Israeli policies, the PA has become a tool of the Israeli occupation, tasked with quelling political dissent and silencing critics.
The latest operation in Jenin is a clear manifestation of how Israel uses the PA to do its dirty work. The Jenin refugee camp, an area of less than half a square kilometre, has always been a symbol of Palestinian resistance. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israel has raided Jenin 80 times in the past year alone, killing at least 220 Palestinians and wounding hundreds more. Yet, Jenin remains unbowed. To now see the PA working in concert with the Israeli army to break the will of Jenin’s 23,000 inhabitants is a deeply painful reality for most Palestinians.
What complicates this crisis even further is the silence of many Palestinian intellectuals, both in the West Bank and the diaspora, who have failed to confront the PA with the same vigour with which they criticise the Israeli occupation. Why have so many prominent voices, intellectuals and political analysts remained mute on the issue of the PA’s betrayal of the Palestinian struggle?
The answer lies in a complex mixture of fear, political pragmatism and historical inertia. For decades, the PA has maintained a stranglehold on the political landscape of Palestinian life. It controls the levers of power, and anyone who dares to challenge its authority risks being silenced, through arrests, imprisonment, torture or worse. Palestinian intellectuals, particularly those in the West Bank, are all too aware of this reality.
Moreover, there is a deep sense of paralysis within the Palestinian intellectual community in the occupied West Bank, in part due to their leadership’s failure to confront Israel over the ongoing genocide in Gaza. But there is more to this ongoing paralysis.
For years, the PA has framed itself as the “sole legitimate representative” of the Palestinian people. Many intellectuals who would normally criticise Israel’s occupation are unwilling to take on the PA for fear of further fragmenting the Palestinians. There is a deep-seated belief among some that a public confrontation with the PA would lead to greater disunity, which could play into Israel’s hands.
This political pragmatism comes at a heavy cost. While many Palestinian intellectuals hesitate to criticise the PA, they are forced into a position of complicity with its actions. The PA’s betrayal of the Palestinian cause is no longer a matter of debate, it is a fact. Yet, by failing to confront this betrayal head-on, intellectuals and activists alike risk forfeiting their moral credibility.
The betrayal of the PA has been laid bare for all to see
In the face of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and unprecedentedly-violent crackdowns on Palestinians in the West Bank, the betrayal of the PA has been laid bare for all to see. Its willingness to assist in the subjugation of Palestinians in the West Bank, while pretending to represent them, has exposed the institution like never before.
Can the PA be saved? The answer may not even matter. What matters is whether the Palestinian people, with their collective will and resistance, can liberate themselves from Israel’s settler colonialism and the moral corruption of their self-proclaimed leadership. The events of the coming weeks and months will be decisive.
RAF Marham is home to Britain’s F-35 fleet. (Photo: Premislao / Alamy)
Declassified UK Exclusive: Parts for Israel’s most advanced fighter jet have been secretly shipped from a British military base during the assault on Gaza.
Reported in partnership with Irish news site The Ditch
F-35 fighter jet parts have been secretly transported to Israel from a British air force base in Norfolk, it can be revealed.
At least seven arms shipments have been sent from RAF Marham to Israel’s F-35 airbase at Nevatim since the Gaza bombing began.
Two of the deliveries took place this summer shortly after Keir Starmer became UK prime minister.
The information is contained within cargo documents reviewed by The Ditch and Declassified.
The documents show that the UK government has not only been approving F-35 export licences to Israel, but actively facilitating their transportation through British military sites.
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Campaign Against Arms Trade’s Sam Perlo-Freeman told Declassified: “The F-35 plays a major part in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and brutal bombardment and invasion of Lebanon”.
He added that “the UK is not only licensing the supply of spare parts, but actively using UK military assets to facilitate their delivery. This makes UK ministers and potentially even military personnel complicit in war crimes”.
UK 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.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/O74hZCKKdpA
Heba Shakura mourns her son Islam Abu Mahdi who was killed in an Israeli army air strike, during his funeral at the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, April 28, 2025
