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Tag: Gaza

  • Over 150 trade unionists block arms factory in Kent

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    ‘Workers For A Free Palestine’ protest at Instro Precision Ltd in Sandwich, Kent, a subsidiary of arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. Trade unionists responded to a request from Palestinan trade unions and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
    ‘Workers For A Free Palestine’ protest at Instro Precision Ltd in Sandwich, Kent, a subsidiary of arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. Trade unionists responded to a request from Palestinan trade unions and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

    https://leftfootforward.org/2023/10/over-150-trade-unionists-block-israeli-arms-factory-in-kent/

    Over 150 young trade unionists created a blockade at the entrances to a factory in Kent this morning, which is the site of an Israeli weapons manufacturer.

    Holding a banner reading ‘Workers For A Free Palestine’, the demonstration targeted Instro Precision Ltd in Sandwich, Kent, a subsidiary of arms manufacturer Elbit Systems which is one of Israel’s largest arms producers responsible for making drones and artillery for the military.

    Members from the unions Unite, UNISON, the NEU, UCU, the BMA, BFAWU, RMT and IWGB were represented, demanding the UK stop arming Israel, in response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

    The action was organised by a new project called Workers for a Free Palestine, set up in response to an urgent call made by Palestinian trade unions for their international counterparts to halt arms trading with Israel.

    Palestinian trade unions called on global workers to take action and “end all forms of complicity with Israel’s crimes” by refusing to build or transport weapons destined for Israel and to increase pressure on governments to call for a ceasefire.

    According to Novara Media reporter Ash Sarkar, multiple lorries and vans were unable to make deliveries to the weapons factory after being turned away by the group today.

    …

    https://leftfootforward.org/2023/10/over-150-trade-unionists-block-israeli-arms-factory-in-kent/

  • What’s happening in Gaza?

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  • Morning Star: Israel’s attacks on the UN underline the isolation of the anti-Palestine West

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    Image of UN chief Antonio Guterres
    UN chief Antonio Guterres

    https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/israels-attacks-un-underline-anti-palestine-wests-isolation

    ISRAEL’S announcement that it will “teach a lesson” to the United Nations by denying visas to its representatives only highlights its growing isolation — and that of its Nato allies.

    Its brutal bombardment of Gaza has already killed at least 29 employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the besieged strip, a tiny proportion of the civilian casualties but a telling sign of Tel Aviv’s contempt for international law.

    The UN’s structure has prevented it from giving a clear moral lead with the United States vetoing calls for a ceasefire. But the remarks by secretary-general Antonio Guterres that have so riled Israeli leaders — that Hamas’s attacks on October 7 did not happen “in a vacuum” and must be linked to “56 years of suffocating oppression” of Palestine by Israel — were a statement of fact.

    More could have been said. It is not just the decades-long denial of Palestinian statehood, the ongoing routine violence of the occupation or the siege of Gaza that set the scene for those terrifying events.

    It is that the oppression of Palestinians has become rapidly more extreme in recent years, from Israel’s adoption of the racist Nation-State Law, through the massacre of unarmed demonstrators on the Gaza border during the March of Return protests, to the appointment of self-described fascist ministers who would have been beyond the political pale even five years ago.

    …

    It is not Western peoples who are isolated, but our politicians, as the huge Palestine demonstrations and the growing backlash against Keir Starmer for endorsing war crimes show.

    If world opinion is for a ceasefire, British public opinion is too. The gulf between people and politicians should be used to build an anti-imperialist movement strong enough to stop the war.

    https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/israels-attacks-un-underline-anti-palestine-wests-isolation

  • Sunak takes British support for Israel to new extreme

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    https://www.declassifieduk.org/sunak-takes-british-support-for-israel-to-new-extreme/

    Israeli prime Benjamin Netanyahu and UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, March 2023.
    Israeli prime Benjamin Netanyahu and UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, March 2023.

    Rishi Sunak has given Britain’s full approval to the flattening of Gaza.

    Late on 7 October, the prime minister tweeted “we stand unequivocally with Israel”. Sunak had expressed “full solidarity” to Benjamin Netanyahu, the tweet added.

    As Netanyahu had promised “mighty vengeance” following the Hamas-led offensive that morning, there was no room for doubt about the signal which Sunak was sending.

    In a few words, Sunak took Britain’s foreign policy to a new extreme.

    Israel’s “mighty vengeance” is shaping up to be its most destructive bombardment ever of Gaza and its 2.3 million inhabitants.

    A “mighty vengeance” endorsed by 10 Downing Street.

    There is a long history of the UK supporting Israel’s wars. 

    …

    https://www.declassifieduk.org/sunak-takes-british-support-for-israel-to-new-extreme/

  • Political leaders must demand peace and justice in Palestine

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    https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/political-leaders-must-demand-peace%C2%A0and%C2%A0justice-palestine

    Israel’s trauma is not a free pass for war crimes, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE MP

    IN THE wake of this month’s Hamas attack on Israeli settlements, the British government, along with other Western governments, gave vocal and emphatic backing to Israel’s “right” to “defend itself.”

    This support has been undiluted even though Israel has cut off food, water and medical supplies to the civilian population of Gaza and unleashed a mass air assault on this tightly packed residential area — according to media reports, more bombs were dropped on tiny Gaza in 10 days than the US dropped on Afghanistan in its first year of operations there.

    Israel has also ordered more than a million Gazan civilians, half of them children, to leave northern Gaza and cram into a tiny area against the Egyptian border.

    The United Nations Office for Human Rights has condemned this as “mass ethnic cleansing” that looks set to be on an even worse scale than the 1948 Nakba, or catastrophe, that saw 750,000 innocent civilians violently driven from their homes, the area that is now Israel.

    The Palestinian people are now overwhelmingly a refugee population. In a clear sign of what arguably could be described as Israel’s real intent, Israeli ministers have openly called for “another Nakba” to be inflicted on Gazans.

    The UN secretary-general and its Human Rights Agency have said emphatically that Israel’s actions toward civilians in Gaza are a war crime, while the UN children’s agency has condemned the appalling physical and psychological impact on children.

    Yet the British government has continued to support such actions as part of Israel’s “right to defend herself,” tacking onto its statements a line saying that Israel must follow international law, as if murdering civilians can somehow be done legally.

    The government’s stance was mirrored by the decision of opposition leader Keir Starmer who appeared to tell radio broadcaster LBC that Israel has a “right” to impose the cut-off on Gaza, a position which also appeared to be supported by members of Starmer’s front bench during various now-notorious media interviews.

    This one-sided response of the British Establishment has also been seen in Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s order to police forces to treat even displays of the Palestinian flag as a potentially criminal act, leading to a number of arrests at Palestinian solidarity demonstrations.

    The government has also pledged extensive direct military support for Israel against Gaza, a region in which children represent half of the population.

    However, collective punishment is a war crime, under international law, against Gaza’s 2.5 million civilians — as is forced transfer of populations.

    …

    Claudia Webbe MP is member of Parliament for Leicester East. You can follow her at www.facebook.com/claudiaforLE and twitter.com/ClaudiaWebbe.

    https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/political-leaders-must-demand-peace%C2%A0and%C2%A0justice-palestine