Protesters march in Huddersfield Photo: Neil Terry Photography
THE first Palestine protests of 2025 took place across Britain at the weekend.
In Wales, campaigners staged a day of healthcare protests including outside Maelor Hospital in Wrexham.
The protest was against “the total destruction of key hospitals and healthcare facilities in Gaza and the wholesale slaughter of Palestinian doctors, nurses and paramedics by the Israeli military.”
A freedom march was also staged through the town of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire on Saturday, organised by Huddersfield Freedom For Palestine.
And hundreds marched through the streets of Manchester on Saturday in a weekly protest organised by Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine (GMFP), which brings together a dozen support groups in the region.
…
Palestine Solidarity Campaign said: “Israel is escalating its attack on Palestinian healthcare system — attacking hospitals and imprisoning hundreds of healthcare workers.
“Join us to demand our government takes action to save Gaza’s healthcare workers.”
The next national demonstration for Palestine takes place in London on January 20.
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 Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Demonstration held in support of Palestinians and Lebanese, in London, United Kingdom on November 30, 2024 [Raşid Necati Aslım – Anadolu Agency]
Lizzie Greenwood, a Manchester activist and former Workers’ Party candidate, has been arrested by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) as she recovers from a 35-day hunger strike protesting the UK government’s funding and arming of Israel.
The arrest follows a reported forced entry into a prior residence and harassment of her father at his home.
According to a post on Instagram, GMP also detained five other activists in recent days, who were later released without charge. Despite the absence of evidence, those arrested have had personal belongings, including phones and vehicles, confiscated indefinitely, and face restrictive police curfews.
Activists of Central Manchester for Palestine said these measures are part of an escalating campaign to intimidate and isolate supporters of Palestinian rights.
Greenwood, who began her hunger strike on 27 October and ended it after 35 days, described the protest as a moral obligation. In a previous video posted to her social media, she stated: “This is a cause that I feel willing and obligated to die for.”
She said her strike was driven by a commitment to prevent atrocities similar to the Holocaust. “I will not be made complicit. I object with every fibre of my being. And if it takes my health and my life to make that known, so be it,” stated Greenwood.
Since 5 October, Israel has launched a large-scale ground operation in northern Gaza allegedly to prevent the Palestinian resistance from regrouping. Palestinians, however, accuse Israel of seeking to occupy the area and forcibly displace its residents.
Since then, almost no humanitarian aid, including food, medicine and fuel, has been allowed into the area, leaving most of the population there – currently estimated at 80,000 – on the verge of famine.
Greenwood has accused the UK government of prioritising funding Israel while neglecting British citizens enduring cost of living crises, mental health struggles and housing shortages.
Israel has launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip killing more than 44,800 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injuring over 106,000.
The second year of the genocide in Gaza has drawn growing international condemnation, with officials and institutions labelling the attacks and blocking of aid deliveries as a deliberate attempt to destroy a population.
On 21 November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWREGenocide 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/O74hZCKKdpA
A student adjusts a sign at an encampment on the grounds of Newcastle University, protesting against the war in Gaza, May 2, 2024
Wave of campus occupations launched at six unis
THOUSANDS of pro-Palestine students across Britain are mobilising at their universities to demand an end to “complicity in Israel’s genocide” following violent demonstrations across US campuses.
Students in Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield and Bristol have joined peers in Warwick by pitching tents outside university buildings in protest against the war in Gaza.
Bristol students said they were golding the action “in protest of the university’s complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians,” while Apartheid Off Campus Newcastle said its own action was to “highlight the institution’s investment strategy and its complicity in the Israeli military’s war crimes.”
Student activists elsewhere have also held marches and protests.
People take part in a Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign demonstration in Glasgow. Picture date: Saturday November 25, 2023.
HUNDREDS of thousands of protesters again took to the streets of London and major cities across Britain on Saturday as public anger over Israel’s slaughter in Gaza showed no signs of abating.
Demands for a ceasefire echoed in and other centres on the second day of the four-day “pause” in Israel’s attack for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
In London, police arrested 18 protesters and police were accused of using catch-all Section 12 regulations to make arrests in response to political pressure.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) director Ben Jamal said: “There has been a major political effort by pro-Israel voices, including in government, to defame the protests as hate marches.
“In response the police today imposed a ludicrous Section 12 that gave them power to arrest anyone arriving early or leaving late no matter what they were doing.”
Stop the War Coalition national officer John Rees said: “This is political policing and it’s pretty certain none of this will be applied to tomorrow’s march for Israel,” referring to today’s demonstration called by the Campaign Against Anti-semitism.
“We are fed up of giving sub-standard and delayed care”
Doctors protest at Conservative party conference 2023
Thousands of doctors have gathered in Manchester outside the Tory Party conference to demand the government listen to their pay demands.
Around 2,000 doctors are expected to be at the national rally this Tuesday organised by the BMA union, with doctors travelling from across the country to join, including junior doctors, consultants and radiographers who are all on strike today.
Doctor Emma Runswick of the BMA said this morning that doctors were ‘fed up’ with giving sub-standard and delayed care to patients under the current conditions. She said doctors were in Manchester in the hope of talking to Tory delegates.
“We’ll be here literally on the doorstep, if they want to come and talk to us they can step outside and we will start negotiations today or tomorrow,” said Runswick.
“We’re hoping that we will be able to put some pressure on the government to resolve this dispute.”
