Palestine Action and Defend Our Juries protesters outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court, London, July 30, 2026
AT LEAST 50 people were arrested outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court today as they demanded the ban on Palestine Action be lifted.
An estimated 200 protesters prepared to read a statement inviting support for the proscribed group as a review hearing began for the prosecution of 1,579 people under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000, for holding signs in support of Palestine Action during mass silent vigils in Parliament Square last year.
It is understood that at least four arrests were made before the action started, two under section 13 for articles of clothing and two for setting up a small stage.
From midday, a programme of speakers took place, with many being arrested while speaking.
Among them was Sir Jonathan Porritt, a campaigner and author who served as director of Friends of the Earth and was an adviser to current King Charles III for more than 30 years
Ahead of the protest, deputy assistant commissioner Andy Valentine said: “The law is clear. Expressing support for proscribed organisations is a criminal offence and anyone doing so can expect to be arrested.”
Protesters wore red to echo the jumpsuits worn during direct actions organised by Palestine Action, many of which targeted weapons factories to disrupt arms supply to Israel amid its genocide.
A Defend Our Juries spokesperson said: “We had hoped to see a different response from the Met Police today, but yet again they are embarking on making hundreds of arrests of regular people who refuse to do nothing as the judiciary criminalised those who act to save lives as terrorists.
“These arrests, like that of thousands of others, 1,855 of whom were listed as needing to appear in court today, are an assault on our democracy, our civil liberties and our moral obligation to step in to prevent genocide.
“We urge the new PM to stop this insanity, at a time when there is so much positive work to be done in our country, Andy Burnham needs to put a stop to huge sums of taxpayer money being used for these arrests and prosecutions that the public at large do not support.”
As arrests continued, court records revealed that Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori will be permitted to challenge the proscription at the Supreme Court.
Keir 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. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
Israeli forces intervene in a commemoration ceremony held by foreign and Israeli activists for Palestinian activist Awde Hadalin in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, West Bank, Palestine, on July 28, 2026. (Photo by Wisam Hashlamoun/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Settler attacks are now the leading cause of Palestinian injuries in the West Bank,” said the Carter Center.
United NationsHuman Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani on Wednesday issued a dire warning about violence being carried out in the occupied West Bank by both Israeli armed forces and Israeli settlers, which she said is “only getting worse.”
Noting that eight Palestinians, including a boy, have been killed in the West Bank in just the last week, Shamdasani decried actions taken by the Israeli government to tighten control of the occupied territory and expand illegal settlements.
“Settlers and Israeli security forces, often acting together, have attacked local communities, assaulting families, destroying and confiscating property, and burning mosques,” said Shamdasani. “Movement restrictions are now tighter, blocking Palestinians from reaching essential services.”
The UN Human Rights spokesperson also expressed alarm at “open calls by Israeli leaders for revenge and collective punishment against Palestinian communities, accompanied by threats to turn the West Bank into another Gaza.”
Shamdasani encouraged the international community to “act urgently and in unison to halt the continuing killing and dispossession of the Palestinian people, and to bring an end to the Israeli occupation.”
In a Tuesday statement, the Carter Center similarly highlighted rising Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, pointing to a recent report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimating an average of six settler attacks per day against Palestinians.
“Settler attacks are now the leading cause of Palestinian injuries in the West Bank,” the center explained, “and more than 3,200 Palestinians have been displaced by settler attacks and home demolitions this year—double the daily rate of the previous three years.”
The center likewise urged the international community to “take urgent diplomatic, legal, and economic action to pressure Israel to fulfill its obligations under international law to curb settler violence, ensure accountability, protect civilians, and end policies that enable settlement expansion and annexation.”
According to the anti-occupation Israeli group Peace Now, officials on the Higher Planning Council on Wednesday were scheduled to discuss authorizing more than 1,200 housing units in four West Bank settlements, which would bring the cumulative number of housing units approved this year to over 8,000.
This comes on top of the nearly 28,000 housing units approved by the council last year, which Peace Now described as “an unprecedented record and the highest annual figure since the establishment of the settlement enterprise in the West Bank.”
Peace Now added that the Israeli government has significantly sped up the process for approving new settlement construction in recent years after scrapping earlier rules requiring the Israeli defense minister to sign off on new building projects in the occupied territories.
“In recent weeks, we have witnessed a change where the Higher Planning Council meets every week and approves several hundred housing units in each meeting,” explained Peace Now. “In this way, the government seeks to normalize planning in settlements and attract less public and international attention and criticism.”
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.Keir 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. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
Waste firm Veolia pays £27k after ‘Yes It’s A Genocide’ banner taken by Greater London Authority was destroyed
The banner was unflurled in Parliament Square in London in December 2024. Photograph: Haroon Siddique/Jiri Rezac/Led by Donkeys
The campaign group Led By Donkeys has received £27,000 in compensation after a giant banner it displayed in Parliament Square saying “Yes It’s A Genocide” was seized by Greater London Authority officials and destroyed.
Representatives of the GLA arrived on the scene in central London and confiscated the 40-metre by 40-metre banner after it was unfurled on 4 December 2024, just over a year after Israel began its assault on Gaza after the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas.
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Ben Stewart, a co-founder of Led By Donkeys, said: “The Parliament Square banner was in collaboration with one of the world’s leading genocide scholars, but still the authorities threw process out the window and simply seized and destroyed our property. Pursuing compensation was never about the money, it was about defending space to protest Israel’s war crimes.
“Palestine protests are treated differently in Britain to all other forms of activism. Direct action is regarded as terrorism and words on a placard are rendered illegal. Over the years we’ve delivered banners, put up billboards and done guerilla projections across the country, but the only time our equipment has been seized and destroyed was when it related to Palestine.”
The banner was videoed from the air and a film created that was posted on social media featuring a voiceover from the renowned Israeli scholar Prof Amos Goldberg, a historian of the Holocaust, who said: “This is exactly what a genocide looks like.”
Vote Labour for Genocide.Keir 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.Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.
Issam Fadi Nabiyye, a 1-year-old Palestinian who lives with his family in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, is seen suffering from severe malnutrition in this July 6, 2026 photo. (Photo by Abdalhkem Abu Riash/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“The October 2025 ceasefire has led to measurable gains in humanitarian access and overall conditions across the Gaza Strip. However, the situation remains deeply fragile.”
Although the Gaza Strip is no longer officially enduring famine, a majority of Palestinians there are suffering “crisis or worse” levels of hunger in an emergency that is expected to worsen in the coming months if Israel’s bombardment and siege—which many experts say is a key component of an ongoing genocide—continue.
The Integrated Phase Food Security Classification—which ranks food security levels on a scale of 1 to 5—on Thursday published an analysis showing that from mid-April to the end of June, more than 1.2 million people, or 59% of Gaza’s population, were experiencing IPC Phase 3 (crisis) or worse levels of food insecurity. This included about 212,000 people in IPC Phase 4 (emergency). All five Gaza governorates were classified as being in Phase 3.
“After two years of conflict, the October 2025 ceasefire has led to measurable gains in humanitarian access and overall conditions across the Gaza Strip,” IPC said in a statement. “However, the situation remains deeply fragile, with civilians continuing to endure harsh conditions.”
#Gaza Strip The Oct 2025 ceasefire has led to measurable gains in humanitarian access & conditions across the Gaza Strip, yet the situation remains deeply fragile. 1.4 million people are facing high levels of acute food insecurity through Dec 2026. More: www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-webs…
This marks an improvement from a year ago, when a “worst-case scenario” was developing into a Phase 5 (catastrophe) famine that was formally declared by the IPC in August 2025. At least hundreds of Palestinians, many of them children, have died from malnutrition since Israel launched its US-backed war on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
The IPC declared last December that while Gaza was no longer in a famine, the situation remained critical for the war-ravaged Palestinians there. The new IPC report warns that two-thirds of Gaza’s population are projected to face Phase 3 crisis conditions by the end of the year.
The organization also said that 74,200 Palestinian children under the age of 5 in Gaza will likely need treatment for acute malnutrition through next April.
(Image by Integrated Phase Food Security Classification)
Responding to the new IPC data, United Nations Children’s Fund Executive Director Catherine Russell said Thursday that “acute malnutrition has fallen, but many children are still going hungry, and some children may never fully recover from prolonged lack of proper nutrition.”
“This progress shows that when humanitarian access improves and aid gets through, children can be pulled back from the brink,” she added. “But it rests on a supplementary feeding program that doesn’t reach all children, and where funding is running out.”
Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 250,000 Palestinians since then, and forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened over 2 million others since then, resulting in worldwide allegations of genocide embodied in an International Court of Justice case filed by South Africa at the end of 2023 and now formally supported by nearly 20 nations.
Like many members of their public, Israeli and US officials under both the Biden and Trump administrations initially denied that Israel was starving Gazans. However, Israeli officials warned in private that Gaza was facing starvation, while US President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other administration figures have acknowledged that Palestinians were starving to death in the strip. That did not stop them from continuing to give billions of dollars in US armed aid to Israel.
In response to the new IPC report, acting United Nations World Food Program Executive Director Carl Skau said that “there is progress on food security in Gaza, but it is fragile and can easily be reversed.”
“The overall humanitarian situation remains brutal: Families lack water, sanitation, and medicine,” Skau added. “We need sustained access, funding, and stability so people of Gaza can begin recovery.”
The heads of various United Nations agencies concurred that a lasting peace—which Israel is not allowing as it continues bombing and besieging Gaza despite a nominal nine-month ceasefire—is imperative for that recovery.
Despite the so-called ceasefire in Gaza, civilians continue to pay a heavy price every day.
People are being killed in their homes, in their communities, and while carrying out ordinary acts of daily life – as Israel increases its control of Gaza.
“Food security in Gaza cannot recover unless local food production starts again and farmers, herders, fishers, and other producers can rebuild their livelihoods,” UN Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Qu Dongyu said on Thursday. “Producers need access to farmland and the sea, and to seeds, tools, livestock supplies, and other agricultural inputs, as well as technical support.”
“Restrictions on agricultural imports and humanitarian supplies must be lifted,” Qu added. “Without these essentials, food production, and security will remain a pressing situation.”
The IPC said that “recent gains remain fragile,” and that “advancing peace plans is essential to support recovery, enable the safe return of displaced populations, and help households rebuild their livelihoods.”
Keir 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.
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U.S. Navy warplane takes off from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln during Operation Epic Fury targeting Iran in the Gulf of Oman, on March 01, 2026. [U.S. Navy / Handout – Anadolu Agency]
Bahrain and Kuwait quietly deployed fighter jets to strike targets within Iran earlier this month, marking their first known direct military response against Tehran, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing “people familiar with the matter.”
The strikes hit facilities used to store drones and missiles, along with other military installations, according to the report.
The United Arab Emirates, which had previously launched several attacks on Iran during the early stages of the conflict, reportedly contributed intelligence on potential targets and provided defensive air support, reflecting growing coordination among Arab states in countering Iran, the report said.
For several weeks, Iran has concentrated its retaliatory attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait, both home to US military bases.
Although the two Gulf nations maintain relatively modest air forces equipped with American and European-made fighter jets, they were unwilling to allow Tehran to continue striking them without responding, the report said.
Regional tensions have escalated over the past two weeks after US President Donald Trump announced on July 8 that the ceasefire outlined in the Islamabad MoU was no longer in effect.
Since then, the US and Iran have exchanged strikes, with Washington targeting sites inside Iran, while Tehran says it has attacked US military facilities and equipmnt across several countries in the region.
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.Keir 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.
Palestine Action and Defend Our Juries protesters outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court, London, July 30, 2026
