Thousands arrested for supporting group since proscription are now in legal limbo as Mahmood says she will appeal
Three senior judges have ruled that the ban on the direct action group Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws was disproportionate and unlawful, handing the home secretary a humiliating defeat.
Shabana Mahmood was urged to respect the court’s decision after the judges said the ban, introduced by her predecessor Yvette Cooper, impinged on the right to protest and should be quashed.
However, the fate of more than 2,500 people, arrested for supporting Palestine Action since proscription, remained in limbo after Mahmood said she would appeal against the ban. Additionally, the three judges, led by the president of the king’s bench division, Dame Victoria Sharp, said the banning order would not be quashed until both sides had been allowed to make representations.
In the meantime, the Met police said they would stop arresting people immediately for showing support for Palestine Action after the high court ruling but would gather evidence for potential future prosecution.
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The judges allowed the challenge on two of four grounds. They were that there was “a very significant interference” with the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and that the then home secretary, Cooper’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action was not consistent with her own policy, which required her to take into account factors including the nature and scale of the organisation’s activities, and the specific threat that it posed to the UK.
Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’.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.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
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A general view of the International Criminal Court (ICC) building in The Hague, Netherlands on April 30, 2024. [Selman Aksünger – Anadolu Agency]
A group of Swiss lawyers has filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court, accusing their government of failing to meet its international legal obligations in relation to Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip.
The complaint relies on reports issued by United Nations bodies and independent international human rights organisations in characterising events in Gaza as genocide.
According to sources familiar with the filing, the complaint places particular emphasis on Switzerland’s status as the depositary state of the Geneva Conventions, arguing that this role carries heightened legal and moral responsibilities.
The plaintiffs include 25 lawyers from both French- and German-speaking regions of Switzerland, a move they say reflects broad concern within parts of the country’s legal community.
The complaint contains direct accusations that policies pursued by Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis facilitated Israeli military operations in Gaza.
The lawyers argue that Switzerland’s official position did not adequately reflect the gravity of Israel’s crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories and instead provided political and legal cover for their continuation.
According to the filing, Swiss exports of military equipment and dual-use materials to Israel during the war totalled approximately 16.7 million Swiss francs in 2024, rising to around 25 million francs the following year. The complainants described these exports as direct material support contributing to the ongoing conflict.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Protest at ICRC building in Gaza in support of Palestinian political prisoners in 2024. Photo: AA
The Israeli occupation authorities have banned the international organization from visiting political detainees held in its prisons since October 7, 2023, which many say reflects Israel’s collective punishment policy.
A press conference was held in front of the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Al-Bireh city, in the central occupied West Bank on Tuesday, February 10.
The event was organized as part of an international campaign to gather one million signatures demanding that the ICRC resume its visits to Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.
A number of press conferences were held in parallel in nine other cities across the world, including Beirut, Gaza, Cairo, Rabat, Tunis, Brussels and Paris in coincidence with the one held in Al-Bireh.
It is worth mentioning that Israel has banned the international organization from visiting the prisoners since October 7, 2023.
The political detainees held by Israel have also been deprived of family visits, and their lawyers have rarely been able to meet them for 28 months, amid continuously deteriorating humanitarian conditions inside the prisons.
The brutal crackdown against the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement pre-dates the genocide in Gaza, but began in January 2023, by Israel’s Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Israel has misused the presence of the ICRC in the occupied territories to whitewash its crimes, says Qadura Fares
During the conference, former head of the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, Qadura Fares, highlighted the key role that the ICRC has played in safeguarding various humanitarian issues internationally and inside occupied Palestine, including the prisoners’ issue.
“We know that the ICRC operates in accordance with international conventions, and in a way that is consistent with its mission as an international humanitarian organization. We are not asking the ICRC to do anything beyond its capacity, but to exert pressure on Israel through the appropriate international legal channels,” Fares noted.
“Nobody can expect Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu or Smotrich as racist fascist leaders to reconsider their decisions and permit the visits to the prisoners again on their own,” the prominent Palestinian political leader added.
Fares emphasized that this goal will be reached only with pressure being exerted on the Israeli authorities in order to cancel the arbitrary measures against the prisoners.
He also affirmed that the ICRC is able to exert such pressure, but it opted to work “within the limits of the authorization given to it by the Israeli occupation government.”
Fares further pointed out that Israel is misusing the presence of the ICRC and other international organizations in the occupied territories to whitewash its image, by showing that these international bodies are allowed to operate there, while their jurisdiction is extremely restricted and confined by the unlawful Israeli regulations.
The prisoners’ issue is a concern of people of conscience worldwide
Meanwhile, director of the Center for the Defense of Liberties and Civil Rights (Hurryyat), Helmi Al-Araj, asserted that the fact that the campaign has been launched from many cities around the world, including European cities “provides a conclusive evidence that the segregation of the detainees in ghetto-like prisons led to an uprising by the people of conscience all over the globe to support them.”
“This once again proves that all the peoples who struggle for freedom worldwide consider the issue of the Palestinian prisoners, in particular, and the Palestinian cause, in general, their own cause,” Al-Araj maintained.
For his part, Palestinian political activist, freedom fighter, and former prisoner in Israeli jails, Omar Assaf, indicated that Lebanese and Syrian nationals have also been held in Israeli prisons, while the majority of the prisoners detained by Israel are Palestinians.
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/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Israeli soldiers during a raid in the occupied-West Bank town of Nablus, February 11, 2026
ISRAELI forces launched a series of raids across Gaza and the occupied West Bank today as the Palestinian humanitarian crisis deepened.
Israeli air strikes and artillery shelling targeted areas east of the southern city of Khan Younis in Gaza.
The Israeli army also continued raids across Hebron in the West Bank, with a number of Palestinians needing treatment for tear gas suffocation.
Since the so-called ceasefire with Hamas and other resistance fighters came into force in Gaza on October 10 last year, the Israelis have killed at least 586 Palestinians and injured another 1,558.
Israeli forces have violated the ceasefire agreement at least 1,620 times, according to the Gaza Media Office.
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Israel has also continued to block humanitarian aid from reaching Gazans and have created obstacles for Palestinians to get through the Rafah crossing between the enclave and Egypt.
Thousands have been waiting to use the crossing to access desperately needed medical treatment.
Many of those crossing have reported mistreatment by the Israelis as they attempted to cross at Rafah.
The Israelis have also continued to choke off access to aid for the Palestinian population.
The ceasefire agreement said that “full aid will be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip.”
Since the ceasefire, only 31,178 aid trucks have been allowed into the enclave, averaging 260 trucks a day, according to the Gaza Media Office.
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/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
“The reported decisions by Israel’s security cabinet to make it easier for settlers to buy land in the West Bank and to expand enforcement powers over Palestinians are a profound assault on Palestinian rights, further entrenching occupation and legitimising illegal settlement expansion.
“These measures are built on the foundation of decades of dispossession, subjugation, and military control of Palestinians, and stand against the stark backdrop of the catastrophic genocide committed in Gaza, where swathes of the population remain deprived of vital aid, medical care, and adequate nutrition, and Palestinians in Gaza continue to be killed by Israeli forces despite a ceasefire being in place. These are not the actions of a state seeking peace; they are the latest extension of a long-upheld system that denies Palestinians the right to determine their own future.
“When the Green Party welcomed the UK’s recognition of the state of Palestine last year as a necessary and long-overdue step, we also warned that recognition alone was not enough – it must be accompanied by meaningful action to uphold Palestinian rights. The UK must take those actions now – ban imports from illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine, halt all arms sales to and military cooperation with the Israeli Government, drive independent investigations into war crimes and support justice mechanisms for victims, and impose sanctions on those Israeli Government officials who are responsible, including Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior figures, given the flagrant disregard for international law displayed through the expansion of illegal settlements.”
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/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Israeli soldiers during a raid in the occupied-West Bank town of Nablus, February 11, 2026