Palestinians walk along a street surrounded by buildings destroyed in Israeli military strikes during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza City, October 6, 2026
Israelis and Palestinians to mark three years since October 7 Hamas attack and beginning of the Gaza genocide
PALESTINIANS and Israelis are to mark three years since the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
During the attack, 1,221 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
Israel’s subsequent invasion of the Gaza Strip has killed at least 74,237 Palestinians, including more than 20,000 children, and wounded around 175,000.
Since a so-called ceasefire agreement took effect on October 10 2025, at least 1,454 Palestinians have been killed and another 5,090 have been injured by the Israelis. Israel has also escalated ethnic cleansing across the occupied West Bank.
Global hunger watchdog the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification says more than 1.2 million people face acute hunger in Gaza.
Stop the War convener Lindsey German told the Morning Star: “Three years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza is a grim milestone.”
But, she added, “we finally see a shift in the British government’s position — undoubtedly a victory for the Palestine movement.”
Referring to planned protests on Saturday, Ms German said it was “the first time we have seen a truly global co-ordination of protests for Palestine — from the Netherlands to Nigeria, South Africa to South Korea, and London to Lima.”
Independent MP for Islington North Jeremy Corbyn said: “Three years ago, we warned that Israel was embarking upon the total annihilation of the Palestinian people in Gaza. We were ignored and smeared, while the British government armed a genocide as it was live-streamed around the world.
“Today, politicians are pretending they have always been opposed to the war crimes they supported and facilitated. Too little, too late. We have been witnessing a genocide — and Britain’s complicity can never, ever be forgotten.
“Three years on, I’m calling for Andy Burnham to finally call Israel’s destruction of Gaza what it is: a genocide.
“He should say: Today, as of now, I am ending all military co-operation with Israel. And he should finally heed my long-standing demand for a full, public inquiry into Britain’s continued involvement.”
Ms German pointed out that on Ukraine, Iran and hikes in arms spending “there remains no difference between Mr Burnham and his predecessor,” adding that it was vital to “link the Palestine campaign to one against all these fundamentally wrong foreign policy priorities.”
Mr Corbyn said: “In the near future, our history books will shame those in our government who enabled one of the greatest crimes of our time. Britain is involved in acts of genocide.”
“Stop it, change it and shut the arms supply to Israel,” he added.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Ed Miliband says that he and the Labour Party are full of shit criminalising people holding signs as terrorists despite anything he says.
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A Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) doctor takes care of patients at Nasser Hospital as patients face difficulties accessing care due to inadequate health services in Khan Yunis, Gaza on January 15, 2026. [Abed Rahim Khatib – Anadolu Agency]
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Monday that Israel was continuing its genocide in Gaza and was “progressively asphyxiating” the region, urging governments to take immediate action, Anadolu reports.
In a statement, MSF said the conditions for the people’s survival were being “systematically destroyed” through sustained violence, “deliberate” blockade of essential supplies and the destruction of healtcare as well as infrastructure.
“In the past year, the physical trapping of people in Gaza has been made increasingly definitive by the establishment of Israel’s Yellow Line,” the French medical charity said.
Recalling that it was originally presented as temporary, MSF noted that the line is now reinforced by military positions, berms and ongoing demolitions while it has continued to move west, “squeezing people into a smaller and smaller area.”
MSF said people risk being shot by Israeli forces when approaching the area, while its teams continue to treat those wounded by gunfire nearby.
“The Yellow Line cannot be treated simply as a line on a map,” said Amande Bazerolle, MSF head of emergency response in Gaza. “It has become a mechanism of encirclement and ethnic cleansing, while cutting communities off from the infrastructure, healthcare, water and other essentials they need to survive.”
MSF said violence was not only confined to the areas around the “Yellow Line,” reporting having treated over 1,200 cases of violent trauma across Gaza in June and July alone.
It recalled that MSF teams treated more than 200,000 trauma cases over the past three years while Israel’s military offensive killed over 74,000 people.
The organization said overcrowding and limited access to clean water, sanitation, shelter and healthcare are contributing to the spread of disease. Its teams also treated over 11,000 skin disease cases and 1,500 chickenpox cases in June and July.
It also pointed to the dramatic deterioration of access to healthcare over the past three years as hospitals run out of basic supplies and patients unable to access essential medicines and treatment.
“Restrictions on essential supplies, such as engine oil and spare parts, are also crippling the infrastructure needed to keep hospitals, ambulances and water systems running, with generators already breaking down and water-trucking operations reduced,” the statement said.
It added that the crisis is not limited to Gaza as violent occupier attacks, military operation and raids on homes, displacements as well as home demolitions escalated rapidly across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“It will take generations to recover from the harm that has already been done over the past three years, and in the preceding decades, while the excruciating consequences of Israel’s ongoing genocide are still being felt every day,” Bazerolle said.
She warned that Israel carried out destruction, displacement and deprivation “with impunity” while such practices became “normalised.”
“Governments must act now to ensure Israel stops the destruction and killing, prevents ethnic cleansing, and stops denying Palestinians the means of survival,” Bazerolle added.
Ed Miliband says that he and the Labour Party are full of shit criminalising people holding signs as terrorists despite anything he says.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.
A B-1 bomber at R.A.F. Fairford in Britain taking off on Sunday. All 12 B-1s were moved from the base in a highly unusual withdrawal.Credit…David Bown/Getty Images
The withdrawal came with unusual speed, following what U.S. officials said were threats of an Iran-based plot against the installation.
The United States rushed over the weekend to withdraw all 12 B-1 Air Force bombers from an air base in southern England after commanders received new threats about an Iran-backed plot against the installation, two U.S. officials said on Sunday.
The withdrawal was highly unusual: Such moves are rarely made so quickly from an allied air base in a peacetime country thousands of miles from a combat zone.
The need to move the bombers out of the base, R.A.F. Fairford, was deemed so urgent that some of the planes and their flight crews left while aerial refueling aircraft were still being scrambled to support their flights to the United States. At least three of the planes had landed at their home base in South Dakota by Sunday, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
The Pentagon’s European Command confirmed on Sunday that the bombers had left England but declined to comment on any new warnings.
dizzy: I linked to this US article because the UK media is omitting the urgency with which the planes were removed [ed: and] is strongly speculating that it is related to or caused by security concerns following a security incident or scare at RAF Fairford.
It’s speculation and it would be equually valid to speculate that it was decided to abruptly terminate US-Israel’s war on Iran ahead of the Midterm elections at the defence chief’s meeting or that there was an assessment concluding that majority opinion in UK has turned against US/UK’s Zionist support of genocide and neo-colonialism and that as a consequence the aircraft were at risk. We need to see what happens next.
[23.58 The security incident is so concocted that it should be dismissed as fake news. I would expect that Donald Trump is unable to discern that as a consequence of his condition. It’s also unlikely that he has any real power for the same reason.]
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Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory, Francesca Albanese delivers a speech during the Global Sumud Parliamentary Congress in Brussels, Belgium on April 22, 2026. [Dursun Aydemir – Anadolu Agency]
Israel’s growing network of checkpoints and road barriers in the occupied West Bank is increasingly restricting the daily lives of Palestinians and dividing the territory, a UN special rapporteur said on Friday, Anadolu reports.
“Arbitrariness itself becomes a form of torment when every journey, every appointment and every family visit depends on whether a gate is open or a soldier allows passage,” Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of occupied Palestinian territories, said in a statement.
UN figures cited in the statement found that 925 checkpoints and other movement obstacles were in place in West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as of December 2025, affecting the movement of 3.4 million Palestinians.
That was the highest number documented in two decades, and 43% above the average recorded in the previous 20 years, according to the UN.
Albanese stressed that movement restrictions have worsened since October 2023. Around Nablus, delays have risen sharply, while in Beit Furik, home to nearly 16,000 and served by a single gate, a journey that normally takes a 15-minute drive has at times stretched to between five and 10 hours.
She also cited the case of four-month-old Ahmed Zaid, who died in July after Israeli soldiers held his family at a checkpoint for more than an hour as they tried to reach an ambulance waiting on the other side.
“Ahmed’s death is a devastating illustration of what this system means in human terms,” she said.
Albanese said the growing number of checkpoints comes amid increasing settler “terror,” settlement expansion, demolitions, displacement and damage to Palestinian agriculture in the West Bank.
Ed Miliband claims that he and Andy Burnham have reformulated Blair’s triangulation strategy. Their new formulation entails acknowledging that they were wrong on Israel and Palestine but entails doing absolutely nothing about it and continuing exactly the same policies hoping that you’re too stupid to notice.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.
Demonstrators at the ”National March” in Tunis, Tunisia, on September 19, 2026 | Chedly Ben Ibrahim/NurPhoto/Getty Images
Wael Naouar has been refusing food since 16 August this year. More than five weeks into his hunger strike, supporters say the Palestinian rights activist imprisoned in Tunis, in a semi-conscious state and on the brink of death: Naour, who is Tunisian, has lost more than 20kg, is struggling to breathe, is fainting repeatedly and suffering from hallucinations.
Naouar is not alone, Nabil Channoufi, Ghassan Henchiri and Ghassan Boughdiri — three other activists imprisoned alongside Naouar — have also joined his hunger strike.
Their alleged crime?
Helping organise the 2025 Global Sumud Flotilla, a Palestine solidarity mobilisation in which hundreds of activists from around the world gathered in Tunisia, before setting sail for Gaza in an attempt to break Israel’s illegal siege blockade of the embattled region to provide vital supplies of food and medicine to an embattled population.
The flotilla — which comprised over 40 ships — never made it to Gaza, but succeeded in refocusing the world’s attention on the UN-designated genocide perpetrated on the Palestinian people by the Israeli state.
The story of Naouar’s arrest, his subsequent hunger strike, and the support he and his comrades have received from a wide cross-section of Tunisian society including the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights, the Tunisian General Labour Union and the Tunisian National Bar Association, reveals how the global grassroots movement to demand justice and freedom for Palestinians shows no sign of abating even as many national governments in across the world either chosen silence, or have bowed to pressure from the United States and Israel to crackdown on their own citizens.
Around the world, including here in the UK, citizens urging their governments to take action face torture, arrest, prosecution and lengthy prison sentences.
Earlier this month, Bassem Trifi, president of the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights, visited Naouar in prison with an appeal signed by the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights, the Tunisian General Labour Union and the Tunisian National Bar Association, urging him to stop the hunger strike and preserve his life.
“His health has deteriorated dramatically and his condition is extremely alarming,” Trifi said at the time, adding that Naouar thanked the organisations and activists supporting him but said his hunger strike would continue until “the injustice imposed upon him and his comrades is lifted.”
When Solidarity is a Crime
In Tunisia, the preparations for the 2025 Sumud Flotilla were far from clandestine. Local activists reached out to the relevant Tunisian authorities to seek permission to charter ships and purchase medicines, baby formula and other humanitarian supplies for Gaza, Ghassan Bouazzi, a member of the National Committee for the Defense of the Sumud Flotilla Activists and the Palestinian Cause, told openDemocracy.
The authorities neither approved nor rejected the application, Bouazzi said, and so the organisers proceeded.
In September 2025, hundreds of activists descended on Tunisia to prepare the flotilla, organisers spoke to journalists, held public gatherings and coordinated with police and security officials around Sidi Bou Said port, where the boats assembled.
“The collection of donations, the organisation of the flotilla and, before that, the organisation of a land-based aid convoy… all took place openly and in full view of the Tunisian authorities,” Bouazzi said, adding that the organising headquarters was barely 500 metres from the interior ministry.
The state did more than simply know about the mobilisation, he continued, “The Tunisian state was, in some sense, a party to the flotilla’s departure, and was fully aware of the entire process through which it was organised.”
Ships from the global flotilla began departing for Gaza from Italy and Spain in late August 2025, and were joined by vessels from Greece and Tunisia in early September that year. On the night of September 24, several vessels were attacked by drones and the Israeli crackdown swung into full force.
Back in Tunisia, the mood of the authorities had begun to shift as well.
In January 2026, Naouar and other organisers in Tunis began publicly discussing preparations for a second flotilla. The following month, organisers submitted an application to the authorities, Bouazzi said. This time, permission was denied.
Weeks later, the arrests began.
The authorities claimed those organising Sumud 2025 had committed fraud, falsification of documents and money laundering. Investigators have since scrutinised the detainees’ bank accounts, assets and financial transactions, as well as those of some relatives, according to Bouazzi. He said that, to his knowledge, the investigation had established no unexplained enrichment or links to money-laundering networks thus far.
Seven organisers were initially detained in March. Three have since been released. Naouar, Channoufi, Henchiri and Boughdiri remain in Mornaguia prison.
Within 48 hours of their arrests, supporters established the National Committee for the Defense of the Sumud Flotilla Activists and the Palestinian Cause. Since then, campaigners have organised repeated protests calling for their release.
Last week, protesters marched through central Tunis from the headquarters of the Tunisian National Journalists’ Union to Avenue Habib Bourguiba, carrying pictures of the four detainees and calling for an end to the case.
Then some of the protesters were arrested too.
From the following night, police detained people who had participated in the demonstration, some from their homes and others from the street. Lawyers said at least 11 had been arrested, while activists put the number at 13 or more.
A judge subsequently authorised an additional 48 hours of detention for some of those arrested, whose lawyers said they had been questioned about slogans chanted during the protest. Tunisian authorities had not publicly confirmed the arrests at the time of writing.
openDemocracy contacted the Tunisian authorities for comment but had received no response by the time of publication.
Activists such as Bouazzai, have been trying to understand what is driving this recent crackdown.
“The Tunisian authorities regard any independent movement with significant popular support and mobilisation as a threat to their power,” he said, “even when that movement is devoted to supporting the Palestinian people.”
Naouar has a history of political organising beyond Palestine solidarity. He was imprisoned as a student under former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, later became secretary-general of the General Union of Tunisian Students and, shortly before his arrest this year, publicly criticised President Kais Saied.
Human rights organisations have also raised wider concerns about pressure on Tunisia’s civil society, including the use of financial investigations, lengthy pre-trial detention and prosecutions of activists and NGO workers. Saied’s government has rejected accusations that the judiciary is being used against political opponents and says judicial proceedings are independent.
That tension is particularly striking in Tunisia, where Palestine has historically commanded broad public support and Saied himself has repeatedly expressed support for the Palestinian cause.
Bouazzi argues there is a growing gap between that rhetoric and the state’s treatment of independent organising around Palestine.
He also believes external pressure and the wider geopolitical situation in the region may have played a role in the government’s changing approach, although he did not provide evidence of specific foreign intervention.
For the movement campaigning outside the prison, the immediate demand remains straightforward: the four organisers should be released.
“What we ask of our friends and of supporters of the Palestinian people around the world is to shed light on this injustice,” Bouazzi said. “International attention could create embarrassment and pressure on the Tunisian authorities and help secure the release of our detained comrades.”
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Ed Miliband says that he and the Labour Party are full of shit criminalising people holding signs as terrorists despite anything he says.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.
Palestinians walk along a street surrounded by buildings destroyed in Israeli military strikes during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza City, October 6, 2026
