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Smoke rises following Israeli airstrikes that hit and destroyed multiple buildings and high-rise towers in Gaza City, Gaza on September 14, 2025. [Ali Jadallah – Anadolu Agency]
Amnesty International UK on Tuesday urged the British government to prevent and punish Israel’s genocide in Gaza following a UN commission’s findings that Israel is committing genocide in the besieged enclave, Anadolu reports.
“We welcome the UN commission’s findings that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza – a significant and necessary moment,” Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty International UK’s crisis response manager, said in a statement.
Saying that the government “must change” its position and take action without delay, he said all states – including the UK – bear a clear and binding legal obligation to act under the Genocide Convention.
“The Government must now stop indulging in genocide denial. It must urgently fulfil its legal and moral responsibility by taking immediate, decisive steps to prevent and punish genocide,” added Benedict.
Amnesty International also reiterated its call on the government to end all UK arms exports to Israel, support the International Criminal Court (ICC) and enforce its arrest warrants, implement International Court of Justice (ICJ) rulings in full, and ban all trade with Israeli settlements.
Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza has killed nearly 65,000 Palestinians since October 2023 and devastated the enclave, which faces famine.
A UN inquiry released on Tuesday found that Israel’s war on Gaza is a genocide.
“It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention,” said Navi Pillay, chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Israel is also facing a genocide case at the ICJ over its war in the territory.
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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.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Palestine solidarity rally in London. (Photo: Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK)
Midwife Fatimah Mohamied is suing an NHS Trust after being referred to counterterror program Prevent for Palestine solidarity social media post
Fatimah Mohamied, a Muslim midwife and mother of two, experienced harassment by her former employer over Palestine advocacy. After leaving her position at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust, she was referred both to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and to the counterterrorism program Prevent – a shocking example of how ordinary people are punished for speaking out against war crimes.
As a Cultural Safety Lead Midwife, Mohamied told People’s Health Dispatch that her role was technically meant to address systemic racism and its consequences in maternity services. In a job advert published in January 2024, the Trust described the post as working toward improved outcomes in the local maternity population and better experiences for marginalized staff. “We are looking for someone who is… not afraid of change,” the advert read.
Mohamied’s experience, however, was the very opposite. After the start of the genocide in Gaza, she felt compelled to speak out and advocate for Palestinians under assault and starvation by the Israeli occupation. “Advocacy, after all, is a prominent part of our role – to speak up for the vulnerable, marginalized and dispossessed,” she previously wrote. “These are NHS values and should invariably include opposing illegal occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing, as they are severe manifestations of racism.”
Yet she soon discovered that this was not the kind of anti-racism work the Trust had in mind. In response to complaints about her personal social media activity, including from the Zionist group UK Lawyers for Israel, her former employer attempted to silence her. “Every attempt I made to bring the question of Gaza or Palestine into my work was impeded and obstructed,” she explains. The Trust argued that her responsibilities were limited to addressing racism inside the institution rather than globally. “But how could I tackle racism if I didn’t speak out against one of the worst manifestations of racism in contemporary history?” Mohamied asks.
Referred to Prevent
After she left the position in March 2024, Mohamied was referred to the NMC, which soon concluded that the complaints were unfounded. Then, in May 2025, a Prevent police officer contacted her, notifying her that the Trust had also referred her to the program.
Part of Britain’s so-called counterterrorism strategy, Prevent has long been shown to disproportionately target Muslim communities, with health services coopted into cooperation. In this context, Mohamied’s referral underscores both the criminalization of solidarity with Palestine as much as it does the systemic racism and Islamophobia in Britain.
Reading the officer’s email, Mohamied describes being terrified, knowing how others had been treated under the program. As a health worker, she had also undergone Prevent-related training, which offered her little reassurance. “Prevent training is built so people will rely on their conscious and unconscious biases,” she says. This, she adds, feeds into the dominant white supremacist framework that society is forced to operate within.
“If you’re Muslim, regardless of whether you are a health worker or something else, you’ll be discriminated against. If you stick out, you’ll be perceived as someone with extreme ideas, and you won’t get the benefit of a doubt as other people will,” Mohamied adds. In this case, the Prevent officer – like the NMC – concluded there was no basis for the referral, even noting it was unusual for an organization the size of an NHS Foundation Trust to make such a claim.
A lesson for all the NHS
The targeting Mohamied faced illustrates a dangerous trend in Britain, where advocacy for Palestine is increasingly censored and criminalized. “I think I’m one in a long line of people who have been harassed for speaking up for Palestine,” she says. In recent months alone, dozens have been arrested for participating in peaceful protests after the proscription of direct action group Palestine Action. Journalists covering Palestine have also been targeted, with homes raided and devices seized.
Mohamied is now taking legal action against the Trust over post-employment harassment and discrimination, urging others to support her case. “I hope my case sends a strong message to the Trust, but also to all the NHS of how they should not be behaving – how they need to apply caution when they’re approached by extreme lobby groups,” she says.
As Israel’s genocide in Gaza continues, Mohamied stresses that justice cannot be separated from speaking out about the atrocities being committed there: “It is naive to believe that Israel’s attacks on healthcare in Palestine won’t impact health elsewhere.”
“It’s time for the NHS to actually stick by its values,” she concludes, invoking the service’s professed dedication to justice and equity.
People’s Health Dispatch is a fortnightly bulletin published by thePeople’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and to subscribe to People’s Health Dispatch, clickhere.
Starmer announces plan to stop the boats in May 2024 | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The UK immigration system is racist by design. The Border Security Bill will make it worse
Over the past few years of increasingly hostile migration policies, many in the migrant, including refugee, charity sector have looked to the dawn of a new government with eager anticipation. Surely, a Labour government would undo so many of these cruel anti-migration laws and mark a more ‘progressive’ chapter in migrant rights?
While the new government wasted little time in scrapping the infamous Rwanda Plan (and rightly so) it has diverted funds from that scheme into yet another anti-migrant policy in the form of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. The announcement of this bill proves our caution was completely justified. It’s simply a continuation of the UK’s track record of enacting immigration policies that disproportionately impact people of colour.
We only have to look at the record of the last Labour government to see that they are no different to the Conservatives in embedding anti-migrant policies and rhetoric. Let’s not forget it was a Labour home secretary who first coined the term ‘hostile environment’ and it was New Labour that brought in the restrictive Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, which laid the foundation for the hostile environment policies of the past 14 years.
In the past year itself, now-prime minister, Keir Starmer, has made plenty of not-so-subtle signs indicating what approach his government would take towards people seeking safety, including a promise to treat so-called ‘smugglers’ like “terrorists”.
Fast forward one year and these ideas have materialised in the form of the new Border Security Bill. The bill was announced as part of the King’s Speech and is part of a turn towards approaching migration through counter-terror, making space for even greater surveillance of and denial of rights for migrants, including refugees.
This dangerous bill would introduce powers previously been confined to alleged terror offenders, including travel bans and restrictions in the UK and abroad, restrictions on access to the internet and banking, and the ability to apply these measures before someone is even convicted of smuggling offences.
UK’s immigration policy has always been racist
Successive UK governments have essentially tried to ‘outdo’ each other when it comes to making the lives of migrants, including refugees, and racialised communities unbearable. In fact, these rafts of policies stem from a long history of targeting ‘unwelcome’ groups based on colonial constructions of the ‘threat’ and who are considered to be of ‘good character’.
In the Migrants’ Rights Network’s new Hostile Office report, we demonstrate that from the 1905 Aliens Act to the inhumane Migration Act 2023 (Illegal Migration Act), as well as the suffering of the Windrush victims and the government’s ability to deprive people of their citizenship, it should be evident to all of us that immigration laws are underpinned by a desire to limit the presence and freedom of racialised people in the UK.
Proposed powers in the new Border Security Bill would enable border force officers to search people and examine and seize their belongings, including copying data from and retaining people’s mobile phones, without a requirement for reasonable suspicion. It mirrors Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, where someone can be arrested and convicted for refusing to hand over sensitive and personal information, including passcodes to devices, in addition to failing to answer all questions or refusing to provide biometric data – all without the need for reasonable suspicion.
However, implementing counter-terrorism policies into immigration is hardly surprising or new. It marks just another chapter of an increasingly cruel, racist and Islamophobic trajectory in the immigration system.
Take citizenship laws, for example. Deprivation of citizenship and counter-terror laws are linked: most cases of deprivation on ‘public good’ grounds have been justified using counter-terror legislation. We have been campaigning against the expansion of deprivation of citizenship powers and highlighting the racist, Islamophobic nature of them.
Since the 2003 ‘Hamza amendment’ to the British Nationality Act 1981 (an amendment that was passed specifically to deport one man, Abu Hamza, a naturalised British citizen), of those who have had their citizenship revoked since 2002, the majority of people affected have been British Muslims.
Our findings show that between 2002 and 2022, 85% of those stripped of their citizenship had, or were deemed to have, nationalities of countries in Africa, South Asia or West Asia (the Middle East) and 83% were from former British colonies. Of this, 41% were South Asian, all being Pakistani or Bangladeshi.
It is, therefore, not a huge leap to understand that the presence of counter-terror measures serves to limit the freedom, security and sense of belonging for racialised people in the UK, particularly those from a Muslim background.
Meanwhile, in December 2023, the Home Office published an Independent Review of Prevent’s report and the government’s response by William Shawcross (Independent Reviewer of Prevent) in which he recommended the Government explore extending Prevent into the immigration and asylum system. Make no mistake, linking the racist criminal (in)justice and counter-terror systems will further the harm and punishment to people seeking safety and a new life. It will do nothing to target the true roots of why people migrate and are forced to make dangerous border crossings.
The answer to a lack of safe routes is not further criminalisation through the introduction of counter-terror powers, which are often opaque and almost impossible to challenge. This lack of safe routes is why brokers exist, to capitalise on people’s desperation.
The Border Security Bill, and the counter-terrorism approach as part of a package deal, will just continue a long tradition of punishing people of colour at the UK border.
(Action against Prevent by members of Medact’s Securitization of Health group outside the UK Home Office on February 15, 2023. (Photo: Medact/Twitter)
NHS staff pulled into counter-terrorism programs, raising alarms over patient care and professional ethics
Mental health workers in the United Kingdom are being drawn into joint ventures with police and intelligence institutions as part of the national counter-terrorism agenda.
A new report by Medact, an association of health workers advocating for peace and social justice, highlights how the Counter Terrorism Clinical Consultancy Service (CT CCS) integrates National Health Service (NHS) staff with counter-terrorism agents. This service effectively turns health workers into interpreters for the police, who use the information provided to decide on tactics for individuals identified as potential terrorist threats.
In 2024, approximately £17 million was awarded to NHS Trusts to collaborate with security services involved in counter-terrorism. At the report’s launch in London, author Charlotte Heath-Kelly explained that these funds support interdisciplinary teams tasked with analyzing information about selected subjects.
The teams comprise mental health professionals, including nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, and police officers. Health workers receive basic information on individuals identified as threats, which they then process and explain to their police counterparts. If the decision is made to continue monitoring a person, health workers interpret new information collected and may reach out to the person’s GP practice to encourage them to report on their patients in case they, for example, discontinue therapy or experience a stressful situation.
“This creates an indirect surveillance relationship between health workers and patients and may compromise a patient’s right to discontinue medical treatment since police-led interventions may follow non-compliance,” Heath-Kelly writes.
Unseen patients
CT CCS health professionals contextualize and explain how potential mental health issues could affect an individual’s behavior. This process, referred to as “formulating,” is commonly used in mental health care to better understand a person’s mental health status in the context of their everyday life and offering them support. However, unlike in healthcare settings where formulating is done collaboratively with the patient, CT CCS professionals have no direct contact with the people they are assessing, nor do they have their consent for the process to take place. This puts the teams at odds with professional ethics.
The involvement of health workers means that counter-terrorism teams do not only profile individuals but are guided in using available medical information contextually. Despite these “improvements,” it is likely that those most affected by this new line of intelligence will be racialized. Previous analyses by Medact have shown that Muslims were about 23 times more likely to be referred to a mental health hub for ‘Islamism’ than white British people were for ‘Far Right extremism.’
CT CCS work: legal but controversial
Alarmingly, there is no public accountability or oversight over the implementation of this program. If allowed to continue unchecked, it will persist as a “bubble of trust” between select health professionals and police officers, as described by a high-ranking officer interviewed by Heath-Kelly. This could easily erode the relationship between health workers and their patients and undermine the overall role of the NHS.
The work of CT CCS teams, while controversial, is entirely legal. They operate within regulations such as the GDPR, relying on provisions that allow information sharing when a person is flagged as a risk to themselves or others. However, they apply these rules even at very low levels of perceived risk, including many cases involving young people and children. This potential for misuse in the field of health information and data, which is particularly sensitive, suggests that similar practices could occur in other areas.
There must be a better way to utilize the millions of pounds allocated to the intersection of health and policing services, Heath-Kelly appealed at the launch. Considering the soaring needs in mental health services and the shortage of health workers in the field, the new government might want to divert the budget to address these critical areas instead.
