The UK Labour government has been unrestrained in it’s persecution of opponents to it’s complicity in Israel’s genocide. Persecution of Palestine Action, rigged trials, biased, evil judges … They’ve even been doing it against Extinction Rebellion FFS!
The real criminals are Labour politicians – Keir Starmer, David Lammy – UK military chiefs and many others. Let’s make sure that they’re prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Let’s properly try to lock the war criminals up.
Article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
In an act described as “collective punishment” against two million Palestinians, Israel announced that it would close off the main entry points for humanitarian aid into Gaza indefinitely in retaliation for strikes launched this weekend by Iran.
Iran launched missiles at Israel on Sunday in response to Israel’s bombing of a densely populated Beirut suburb, which killed civilians and violated a June 1 agreement not to bomb Lebanon’s capital.
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In addition to retaliating with new strikes on Iran, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said on Sunday that “a number of necessary security measures have been implemented” following the missile fire, “including the closure of the crossings into the Gaza Strip, among them the Kerem Shalom Crossing and the Rafah Crossing, until further notice.”
COGAT claimed that closing the crossings “will not affect the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip” because “the substantial quantities of food that have entered the strip since the beginning of the ceasefire significantly exceed the nutritional needs of the population, according to [United Nations] methodologies.”
That is not what actual UN reports say. The World Food Program (WFP) estimated in June that about 1.6 million people living in Gaza, more than three-quarters of the population, were “facing high levels of acute food insecurity” despite the entry of food parcels and other aid since the October 2025 “ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas.
In the first half of May, UN workers identified more than 2,000 cases of acute malnutrition among young children, according to a June report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
That same OCHA report said about 678,000 hot meals were delivered in May, down from 1.5 million per day in mid-March as a result of underfunding and due to Israel’s closures and restrictions at certain entry points. The number of people receiving food parcels in May also dropped to about 820,000, down from 1.1 million in March. The rations that were distributed in May covered only about 75% of the average person’s minimum daily caloric needs, while those distributed in March covered about 50%.
While the amount of aid entering the strip has increased since the ceasefire went into effect, UN data has never suggested that the amount entering “exceeds” the needs of Palestinians. Since the truce began, reports have consistently said the amount of aid entering the strip was only reaching part of the population, and that aid packages only contained part of the needed nutritional value, which did not meet the terms of the agreement.
Israel, which has been accused of using starvation as a “weapon of war” against Gaza by UN bodies and major human rights groups, previously closed all crossings into the strip at the start of its military assault against Iran in late February.
This not only halted the entry of food and medical aid but also blocked medical evacuations for sick and injured Palestinians, which were desperately needed due to Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s medical system. Even as entry points reopened in the following weeks, aid entry never returned to previous levels.
COGAT said on Monday that “the crossings will be reopened gradually, subject to an ongoing operational assessment and under security restrictions designed to ensure the safety of all personnel present at the crossings on both sides,” though it provided no clear timeframe or indication of how much aid would be allowed in.
“Aid is not a political tool and should not be weaponized in this way. The survival and needs of children in Gaza should not have to answer to airstrikes elsewhere,” said Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children’s regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe in a statement on Monday.
“For nearly three years, Gaza has been pummelled so hard by Israeli airstrikes that nothing can grow there and people have been reliant on the already small amount of aid crossing the border—aid that was never enough and is now totally out of reach,” he added. “Children in Gaza have already been starved by design. They should not now be denied water, medicine, shelter, and the other essentials needed to survive. The Israeli authorities must re-open these crossings immediately, lift the siege, and facilitate the safe delivery of humanitarian aid at scale.”
With Israeli leaders openly stating their goal in recent weeks to expand the nation’s occupation of Gaza despite the ceasefire, international observers have suggested that Israel was using the escalation of hostilities with Iran as an excuse to ramp up its brutal treatment of Palestinians, nearly 1,000 of whom have been killed in the strip since the ceasefire went into effect.
The US-brokered ceasefire agreement signed by Israel and Hamas in October required the “full entry of humanitarian aid and relief” into the strip.
“The guarantors of the ceasefire must step in and force Israel to reopen the crossings, resume and triple the aid amounts, and totally stop any attacks on Gaza now,” said Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed. “This is their job. And they must uphold the ceasefire agreement.”
Article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Over half of former Labour voters who intend to back other centre or leftwing parties in the next general election cite the Labour government’s handling of the ongoing genocide in Gaza as either a factor or a major factor in their decision, new polling shows.
Of 700 UK adults surveyed in the new poll from Opinium, 53% said the government’s position on Gaza influenced their decision to switch their vote from Labour, with 21% saying it influenced them a great deal and 31% saying it influenced them somewhat.
Labour’s record on Gaza was found to be particularly significant for younger voters and Green party supporters, and backing for the UK to take decisive action against Israel polled as widespread.
Commissioned by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the polling was conducted between 29 May and 2 June among people who previously voted Labour in either the 2019 or 2024 general election, and now intend to vote Green, Lib Dem, Scottish National Party (SNP), Plaid Cymru or other – or for independent candidates.
PSC told Novara Media the polling “confirms that Palestine was on the ballot for millions of progressive voters” during May’s local elections, where Labour lost 58% of the seats it was defending in England and lost almost four times as many voters to the Greens than to Reform UK.
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Israel has asked the United States to allow it to expand its military operations in Lebanon to include large-scale air strikes on Beirut, rather than limiting its actions to targeted assassinations, according to Israeli Channel 12.
The broadcaster reported on Sunday evening that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a second security meeting on the same day to discuss the possibility of shifting from occupying and seizing territory in Lebanon to launching an air campaign in Beirut.
According to the report, any decision on the matter depends on discussions with the US administration, adding that the issue has gained momentum in recent days.
Two days earlier, Netanyahu spoke with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and sought to persuade senior US administration officials, as well as President Donald Trump, that “Israel cannot grant Hezbollah immunity in Beirut, even if targeted assassinations can be carried out there”.
Israeli sources cited by the report said that “the decision on the nature of the operation in Beirut is being made in coordination with Washington”.
An Israeli source described by the report as familiar with the matter said that the Americans “are showing greater openness, but there is no final approval, at least for now”.
READ: Israeli airstrike wounds 13 healthcare workers in southern Lebanon
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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Israeli occupiers on Sunday stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied East Jerusalem under police protection, amid Palestinian warnings of “Judaisation” plans, Anadolu reports.
Omar Rajoub, director of the Media Department at the Jerusalem Governorate, told Anadolu that “raising the Israeli flag inside the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, along with performing provocative rituals, is part of a systematic and deliberate official Israeli policy led by the extremist occupation government.”
“These practices aim to impose new realities by force in occupied East Jerusalem and undermine the historical and legal status quo at the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” he added.
He warned that “occupiers’ actions inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque are part of an ongoing colonial plan targeting the spatial and temporal division of the mosque, the Judaization of the city to obliterate its religious and historical identity, and the alteration of its legal, cultural, and demographic character.”
READ: 33 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in Gaza during Eid holiday, Health Ministry says
Rajoub said the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque by occupiers under police protection is “a clear violation of international law” and hurts the feelings of Palestinians and millions of believers around the world.”
He warned of the repercussions of these violations, describing them as “serious, repeated, and unacceptable,” and held “the Israeli government fully responsible for this dangerous escalation.”
He also called on “the international community and all countries to assume their legal and moral responsibilities and take immediate action to stop these ongoing violations against the Palestinian people and the holy sites in occupied Jerusalem.”
He emphasized that “the entire 144-dunam area of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque is a place of worship exclusively for Muslims.”
Since 2003, Israeli police have unilaterally allowed the occupiers to enter the mosque daily during two periods—morning and afternoon prayers—except on Fridays and Saturdays.
Palestinians say Israel is intensifying efforts to Judaize East Jerusalem, including Al-Aqsa Mosque, and erase its Arab and Islamic identity.
The Palestinians regard East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, based on international resolutions that do not recognize Israel’s occupation of the city in 1967 or its annexation in 1980.
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