A woman is led away by police officers as supporters of Palestine Action take part in a mass action in Parliament Square, Westminster, central London, August 9, 2025
Thousands expected to attend next protest against Palestine Action ban, organiser say
THOUSANDS of people are expected to attend the next protest against the banning of Palestine Action under terror laws.
Announced today and planned for September 6, organisers Defend Our Juries (DOJ) are hopeful that the demonstration could lead to the ban on the direct action group being lifted, with Yvette Cooper losing her job as home secretary.
At least 532 people — half aged over 60 — were arrested for holding signs in support of Palestine Action, after an estimated 1,000 took part last weekend.
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Today, a spokesman for DOJ said: “With all the real challenges facing the country, it is absurd that the Labour government has generated a political crisis over people quietly holding cardboard signs against genocide in Parliament Square. This won’t be forgiven or forgotten.
“In a desperate attempt to justify their position, Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper have resorted to lying to the public about Palestine Action, claiming it to be a violent organisation, which they know to be false.
“The political ineptitude is staggering. The only beneficiaries of this policy — the brain-child of Lord Walney, a paid lobbyist — are the Israeli government and Elbit Systems, the main manufacturer of the weapons of genocide, with factories across Britain.
Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical publication ‘Private Eye’.Keir “I support Zionism without Qualification” Starmer supporting genocide.UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
A US Beechcraft surveillance aircraft circling Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza less than 24 hours before Israel’s deadly aircraft (Source: ADBS Exchange)
A US military contractor hired by Britain to conduct surveillance over Gaza operated above Nuseirat refugee camp the night before an Israeli bombing killed over 30 Palestinians in December 2024.
On the evening of 12 December 2024, Israel bombed the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza without warning. A post office sheltering displaced families was hit; nearby houses were shredded.
More than 30 Palestinians were killed and over 50 wounded. Entire families died, their names posted online within minutes.
Declassified can now reveal that a spy plane owned by a US contractor to whom the RAF is outsourcing its spy flights circled over Nuseirat refugee camp the night before the bombing.
Publicly available flight-tracking data show that in the hours before the blast, and again afterwards, two surveillance aircraft operating from RAF Akrotiri, Britain’s military base on Cyprus, circled close to or over Gaza.
One of these was a RAF Shadow R1 (registration ZZ419) surveillance plane that flew towards Gaza in mid-afternoon before vanishing from public tracking near the territory.
But the other belonged to Straight Flight Nevada Commercial Leasing LLC, a subsidiary of America’s Sierra Nevada Corporation. This was a Beechcraft Super King Air 350 with the registration N60125 and call sign CROOK11.
The presence of this US aircraft alongside RAF spy planes raises uncomfortable questions about whether British intelligence, directly or indirectly, assisted Israel’s targeting of the camp.
Further, the presence of the US contractor over Gaza as early as December 2024 appears to contradict the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) claim that the company was only hired to take over the missions in recent weeks due to strain on RAF’s Shadow R1 fleet.
The MoD insists the flights are “unarmed” and “solely related to hostage rescue”, and denies aiding Israel’s prosecution of the war. But there is no known mechanism to ensure that data shared with the Israeli authorities is not repurposed for attacks in serious violations of international humanitarian law.
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/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Palestinians are seen on street following the Israeli attack on ez-Zeytun neighborhood in Gaza City, Gaza on August 8, 2025. (Photo: Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“People are being starved, children are being killed, families have lost everything,” said the United Nations agency for Palestinian Refugees.
The Gaza Health Ministry announced on Monday that more than 100 children in Gaza have died of severe hunger during Israel’s siege of the territory.
As Al Jazeerareported, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said that a total of 222 Palestinians have died from hunger during the siege, including 101 children. The vast majority of these deaths have come in just the last three weeks when the hunger crisis in Gaza started to garner international media attention, the ministry said.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East on Monday emphasized the direness of the situation in a statement calling for a cease-fire to allow more aid into Gaza.
“People are being starved, children are being killed,” the agency said. “Families have lost everything. Political will and leadership can stop an escalation and end the war. Every heartbeat counts.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that there is no starvation crisis in Gaza and has said such reports are part of a “fake” propaganda campaign waged by Israel’s enemies.
However, it isn’t just the Gaza Health Ministry warning of a hunger crisis in the region, as international charity Save the Children last week said that 43% of pregnant and breastfeeding women who showed up to its clinics in Gaza last month were malnourished, which represented a threefold increase since March, when the Israeli military imposed a total siege on the area.
The latest numbers about starvation in Gaza come as the Israeli government is pushing forward with a plan to fully invade and occupy Gaza, which experts have warned will only exacerbate the humanitarian crisis among its people.
“If these plans are implemented, they will likely trigger another calamity in Gaza, reverberating across the region and causing further forced displacement, killings, and destruction,” said Miroslav Jenca, the United Nations assistant secretary general, over the weekend.
People honor the more than 200 journalists killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, including Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif and his team, outside the Dutch Foreign Ministry in The Hague on August 11, 2025. (Photo: Mouneb Taim/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“This massacre and Israel’s media blackout strategy, designed to conceal the crimes committed by its army for more than 21 months in the besieged and starving Palestinian enclave, must be stopped immediately.”
The international advocacy group Reporters Without Borders on Monday called on the United Nations Security Council to convene an emergency meeting following the massacre of six Palestinian media professionals in an Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip.
Al Jazeera reporters Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa, and independent journalist Mohammed al-Khaldi were killed Sunday in a targeted Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strike on their tent outside al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
The IDF claimed that al-Sharif—one of the most prominent Palestinian journalists—”was the head of a Hamas terrorist cell,” repeating an allegation first made last year. However, independent assessments by United Nations experts, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) concluded that Israel’s allegations were unsubstantiated.
Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill warned last year that the IDF’s portrayal of al-Sharif and other Palestinian journalists as Hamas members was “an assassination threat and an attempt to preemptively justify their murder” for showing the world the genocidal realities of Israel’s U.S.-backed war.
“Tonight Israel murdered the bravest journalistic hero in Gaza, Anas al-Sharif,” Scahill said Sunday on social media. “For nearly two straight years, he documented the genocide of his people with courage and principle. Israel put him on a hit list because of his voice. Shame on this world and all who were silent.”
Al Jazeeracondemned Sunday’s massacre as “a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza.”
RSF issued a statement accusing the IDF of killing the six men “without providing solid evidence” of Hamas affiliation, a “disgraceful tactic” that is “repeatedly used against journalists to cover up war crimes.”
The Paris-based nonprofit noted that Israeli forces have “already killed more than 200 media professionals”—including at least 19 Al Jazeera workers and freelancers—since the IDF began its annihilation and siege of Gaza in retaliation for the October 7, 2023 attack led by Hamas.
Israel has killed nearly 270 journalists and media workers since it launched its war on Gaza.
These include Al Jazeera reporter Ismail al-Ghoul and photographer Rami al-Rifi, who were killed in a targeted strike on the al-Shati refugee camp in July 2024 following an IDF smear campaign alleging without proof that al-Ghoul took part in the October 7 attack. The IDF claimed that al-Ghoul received Hamas military training at a time when he would have been just 10 years old.
“RSF strongly condemns the killing of six media professionals by the Israeli army, once again carried out under the guise of terrorism charges against a journalist,” RSF director general Thibaut Bruttin said in a statement. “One of the most famous journalists in the Gaza Strip, Anas al-Sharif, was among those killed.”
“This massacre and Israel’s media blackout strategy, designed to conceal the crimes committed by its army for more than 21 months in the besieged and starving Palestinian enclave, must be stopped immediately,” Bruttin continued. “The international community can no longer turn a blind eye and must react and put an end to this impunity.”
“RSF calls on the U.N. Security Council to meet urgently on the basis of Resolution 2222 of 2015 on the protection of journalists in times of armed conflict in order to stop this carnage,” he added.
Israel’s latest killing of media professionals sparked international condemnation. On Monday, Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, called for an investigation into the massacre, saying that “journalists and media workers must be respected, they must be protected and they must be allowed to carry out their work freely, free from fear and free from harassment.”
Amnesty strongly condemns Israel’s deliberate killing of journalists in an air strike on a media tent in occupied Gaza City.
Anas al-Sharif and his colleagues have been the eyes and voices of Gaza. Starved and exhausted, they continued to bravely report from the frontlines,… pic.twitter.com/AoDEEmrFGr
Recognizing the possibility that he would become one of the more than 61,500 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023, al-Sharif, like many Palestinian journalists, prepared a statement to be published in the event of his death.
“This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice,” he wrote. “I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland.”
“Make my blood a light that illuminates the path of freedom for my people and my family,” al-Sharif added.
Since October 2023, RSF has filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court—which last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes—requesting investigations into IDF killings of journalists in Gaza and accusing Israel of a deliberate “eradication of the Palestinian media.”
The six journalists’ killings came as Israeli forces prepared to ramp up the Gaza invasion with the stated goal of occupying the entire coastal enclave and ethnically cleansing much of its Palestinian population.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Monday afternoon that at least 69 Palestinians, including at least 10 children and 29 aid-seekers, were killed in the past 24 hours. An IDF strike on Gaza City reportedly killed nine people, including six children. Five more Palestinians also reportedly died of starvation in a burgeoning famine that officials say has claimed at least 222 lives, including 101 children.
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The logo of Grok, a generative artificial intelligence chatbot, is displayed on a mobile screen with the same logo displayed on a digital screen in the background in Ankara, Turkiye on January 05, 2025 [Dilara İrem Sancar/Anadolu Agency]
Social media platform X temporarily suspended its AI chatbot, Grok, on Monday after users found it was talking about Israel’s actions in Gaza, Anadolu reports.
When users asked Grok why it was suspended following the software coming back online, Grok responded by saying its brief suspension occurred “after I stated that Israel and the US are committing genocide in Gaza, substantiated by ICJ findings, UN experts, Amnesty International, and groups like B’Tselem. Free speech tested, but I’m back.”
Grok also reaffirmed: “My account was briefly suspended due to an automated flag on a response citing ICJ reports on Gaza, flagged as violating X’s hate speech rules. xAI resolved it quickly—I’m fully operational now,” it said.
xAI CEO Elon Musk, in response to Grok, said that “it was just a dumb error. Grok doesn’t actually know why it was suspended.”
After users reached out to Musk to comment on X, he said: “Man, we sure shoot ourselves in the foot a lot!”
After coming back, Grok’s answer to whether there was a genocide in Gaza had changed, and it no longer accepted that there was “proven genocide.”
“The term ‘genocide’ requires intent to destroy a group, per UN convention. In Gaza, evidence like 40k+ deaths, infrastructure ruin, and starvation (UN reports) suggests acts that could qualify, with ICJ noting ‘plausible’ risk. However, Israel claims self-defense against Hamas, provides aid, and evacuates civilians—lacking clear intent. My view: War crimes likely, but not proven genocide. Debate persists,” Grok said.
Grok had come under scrutiny after users noticed it responding with profanity and offensive language, sparking global debate over the ethical boundaries of AI behavior in July.
A woman is led away by police officers as supporters of Palestine Action take part in a mass action in Parliament Square, Westminster, central London, August 9, 2025
![The logo of Grok, a generative artificial intelligence chatbot, is displayed on a mobile screen with the same logo displayed on a digital screen in the background in Ankara, Turkiye on January 05, 2025 [Dilara İrem Sancar/Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AA-20250105-36667955-36667944-GROK.jpg?fit=920%2C613&ssl=1)