People take part in a pro-Palestine march in central London, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, February 17, 2024
PALESTINE solidarity campaigners told Home Secretary James Cleverly today they will not stop marching — rebuffing his demand for an end to the demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Mr Cleverly, desperate to bring a halt to the protests which brought down his predecessor Suella Braverman and have shaken the establishment, said the marches should stop as they had “made their point” — the latest government attempt to halt the movement.
But the six organisations which have come together to organise the solidarity movement made it clear that they would not consider pausing their campaigning until there was at least a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Instead, at a Westminster press conference, they united to slam the mounting assault on the right to protest being conducted by the government and other right-wing politicians.
“There is a growing attack on the right to protest,” Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal told the press conference.
“Demonising the protesters for Palestinian rights by pro-Israeli politicians serves to deflect attention from Israel’s genocide.”
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Left MP John McDonnell criticised proposals being circulated to insulate politicians from mass protests.
He said: “This is the operation of our democracy. We should welcome it and be proud of it.”
A huge scandal has broken out in the US after the New York Times (NYT), one of the United States’ leading newspapers, was found to have run a major front-page story smearing Palestinian resistance fighters as using ‘systematic’ use of sexual violence co-written by an Israeli film-maker with no journalism background who served as a in Israeli military intelligence – and had ‘liked’ social media posts featuring racism and violence toward Palestinians.
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Schwartz reportedly ‘liked’ a post that talked about turning Gaza ‘into a slaughterhouse’ including the summary execution of prisoners and ‘violat[ing] any norm’:
Stephen Flynn has hit back at the Speaker for refusing to allow the party an emergency debate (Image: PA)
THE SNP have accused the Westminster system of “failing the people of Gaza” after the Speaker denied the party an emergency debate on calls for an immediate ceasefire.
Lindsay Hoyle rejected the party’s application for a fresh debate on the issue on Monday afternoon, despite explicitly offering one after his decision to allow a Labour amendment during the SNP’s opposition day debate meant there was no formal vote held on the SNP’s motion.
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The SNP tabled a new motion for an emergency debate so the UK Parliament could vote for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel and push the UK Government to take “concrete steps” to help make a ceasefire happen.
Following Hoyle’s decision, a furious Flynn said: “Yet again, Westminster is failing the people of Gaza by blocking a vote on the urgent action the UK Government must take to help make an immediate ceasefire happen.
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Read the SNP’s full emergency debate motion below:
That this House officially reaffirms its position, as of 21st February 2024, to support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel; further reaffirms its horror at the October 7th 2023 terrorist attacks by Hamas and the subsequent collective punishment of the Palestinian people in Gaza; demands the release of all hostages taken by Hamas; condemns any military assault on the 1.5 million refugees sheltering in Rafah; further demands the Government immediately halts all transfers of military equipment and technology, including components, to Israel, and to suspend the issuing of new licences; calls on the international community to ensure the rapid and unimpeded humanitarian relief is provided in Gaza; further calls for an end to settlement expansion and violence; urges Israel to comply with the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures; and urges all international partners to work together to establish a diplomatic process to deliver the peace of a two-state solution; recognises that statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people and not in the gift of any neighbour; instructs the Government to vote for an immediate ceasefire, or wording with that effect, during the next relevant motion brought before the United Nations Security Council.
Palestinian children hold out their empty containers to be filled with food in Rafah, Gaza on February 25, 2024. (Photo by Abed Zagout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A new report by Human Rights Watch accuses the Israeli government of defying the International Court of Justice’s order to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
In the month since the International Court of Justice handed down its interim ruling in the genocide case brought by South Africa, the Israeli government has continued to impede the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip in violation of the court’s order, Human Rights Watch said Monday.
The ICJ’s January 26 ruling, which is legally binding, requires Israel to do everything in its power to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza and ensure that basic assistance flows to the enclave’s population.
But according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), “the daily average number of trucks entering Gaza with food, aid, and medicine dropped by more than a third in the weeks following the ICJ ruling: 93 trucks between January 27 and February 21, 2024, compared to 147 trucks between January 1 and 26, and only 57 between February 9 and 21.”
HRW’s analysis comes on the day the Israeli government is set to deliver its own 30-day assessment of compliance with the ICJ decision, which stated that Israel is plausibly committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The Times of Israel reported late Sunday that the government report “is being drafted by the Justice Ministry and the Foreign Ministry but will not be released to the press or general public, and both ministries have been extremely tight-lipped about the information in the document.”
Observers don’t expect the government’s self-assessment to reflect the catastrophic reality on the ground in Gaza, where most people are starving and at growing risk of infectious disease due to the scarcity of clean water and adequate shelter. Israel has been accused of firing on aid convoys and targeting crowds of civilians gathering to receive food and other assistance.
In desperation, some Gazans have resorted to eating grass and animal feed and drinking contaminated water. A majority of Gaza’s population is currently crowded into the city of Rafah, which Israel plans to invade whether or not there’s a cease-fire deal with Hamas.
“The Israeli government is starving Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, putting them in even more peril than before the World Court’s binding order,” Omar Shakir, HRW’s Israel and Palestine director, said in a statement Monday. “The Israeli government has simply ignored the court’s ruling, and in some ways even intensified its repression, including further blocking lifesaving aid.”
“Failure to ensure Israel’s compliance puts the lives of millions of Palestinians at risk.”
HRW’s analysis notes that in addition to blocking food aid and medicine shipments, Israeli authorities have also obstructed the delivery of fuel, the lack of which has forced many of Gaza’s hospitals to shut down.
“Between February 1 and 15, Israeli authorities only facilitated 2 of 21 planned missions to deliver fuel to the north of the Wadi Gaza area in central Gaza and none of the 16 planned fuel delivery or assessment missions to water and wastewater pumping stations in the north,” the group said. “Fewer than 20% of planned missions to deliver fuel and undertake assessments north of Wadi Gaza have been facilitated between January 1 and February 15, as compared with 86% of missions planned between October and December.”
Israel’s mass killing of Gazans has also not stopped in the wake of the ICJ order, HRW said Monday. Pointing to figures from Gaza’s health ministry, the group noted that Israeli forces killed more than 3,400 people in the Palestinian enclave between the day of the ICJ ruling and February 23.
“Israel’s blatant disregard for the World Court’s order poses a direct challenge to the rules-based international order,” Shakir said. “Failure to ensure Israel’s compliance puts the lives of millions of Palestinians at risk and threatens to undermine the institutions charged with ensuring respect for international law and the system that ensures civilian protection worldwide.”
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor similarly concluded in a report released over the weekend that Israel is in “flagrant violation” of the ICJ’s order.
The group implored the international community “to uphold its legal and moral duties to the people of the Gaza Strip, and to ensure that the ICJ ruling is carried out to prevent the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip.”
