“No One Can Say We Didn’t Know”: Greta Thunberg, Others Speak After Israeli Detention
It starts with Palestine protests. But where will the crackdown on Britain’s democratic freedoms end?
dizzy: This is a small excerpt (the closing paragraphs) of a long Guardian article by journalist Owen Jones. The whole article is recommended. Will these new laws lead to widespread challenges just as the proscription of Palestine Action has done? Is it too much to expect the arrogant Zionist Labour government to learn from it’s mistakes?
…
On the same day as the synagogue attack, the Israeli army killed at least 57 Palestinians in Gaza – another hideous tally in two years of daily atrocities that have left tens of thousands dead. British politicians and media outlets have barely concealed the lack of value they attach to Palestinian life. It is among the most brazen expressions of racism of our time. One wonders how history will judge this moment: politicians are accusing people who are protesting against genocide of inciting hatred, while they are supporting those who are committing genocide.
Our government has already crossed a dangerous threshold by proscribing Palestine Action, a non-violent, anti-genocide direct action group. More than 2,000 British protesters have been arrested, mostly for holding placards opposing genocide and supporting the banned organisation. Many of them are pensioners; one is a retired priest, another the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. When the state begins calling movements “terrorism” when they are nothing of the sort, it is attacking democracy itself.
It’s not hard to see where this all leads. In the US, Democrats helped to demonise pro-Palestinian protests: the former house speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that some were “connected to Russia”, while Joe Biden called such protests antisemitic. In doing so, they only helped to legitimise the authoritarian crackdown on such protests – and on freedom of expression in general – under Donald Trump. If Nigel Farage becomes prime minister, a hard-right government would be granted sweeping powers to control dissent. What do you think a Reform government would do with this repressive toolkit? Our ancestors struggled, suffered and died to secure our freedoms. We will come to rue how casually we let them go.
Original article at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/06/palestine-protests-labour-democratic-freedoms-nigel-farage
The right to protest is fundamental in any democratic society and must be defended
Statement by Stop the War Coalition on the right to protest
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Prime Minister Keir Starmer are seeking to weaponise the situation to ramp up the attack on the Palestine movement, with talk of “repeated protests” being a drain on police resources, the Stop the War Coalition has said.
In response to the home secretary’s announcement of plans to crack down on pro-Palestine protests, Stop the War convenor Lindsey German said:
“Stop the War is alarmed that the UK government intends to introduce greater restrictions on the right to protest in the wake of the appalling attack at the Manchester synagogue.
“It defies logic for the Home Secretary to suggest that there should be limits placed on how often people can protest against a genocide that has been waged on the people of Gaza for two years.
“Marches organised by the Palestine coalition, which Stop the War is a part of, have been attended by hundreds of thousands of people, and we believe they are representative of majority public opinion in this country which wants to see an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people.
“We condemn the attack on the Manchester synagogue, just as we condemn recent attacks on mosques and hotels accommodating asylum seekers.
“We wholeheartedly reject the implication that our peaceful marches are in any way responsible for the attack.
“Stop the War has never conflated Israel’s illegal actions with the British Jewish community and will continue to vociferously oppose any attempt to do so.
“Our movement is multi-ethnic, peaceful and opposed to all forms of racism, including antisemitism and Islamophobia.
“Thousands of Jewish people have taken part in our demonstrations, many as part of an organised block, and will continue to do so.
“The Palestine coalition has already faced more severe restrictions on our right to assemble and protest than any other protest group, and we oppose any attempts by the government to intensify this.
“The right to protest is fundamental in any democratic society and must be defended – we will be working with others to do this in the coming months.
“We call on all our supporters to join the Palestine coalition on the streets of London next Saturday (11 October) for what will be the thirty-second national demonstration for Palestine.
“This will be another massive mobilisation of support for the Palestinians, but also an expression of our absolute commitment to defend the right to protest.”
Gaza death toll tops 67,100 amid Israel’s genocidal war
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
At least 67,139 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip since October 2023, the Health Ministry said on Sunday, Anadolu reports.
A ministry statement said that 65 bodies were brought to hospitals in the last 24 hours, while 153 people were injured, taking the number of injuries to 169,583 in the Israeli onslaught.
“Many victims are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.
It also noted that two Palestinians were killed and 30 others injured by Israeli army fire while trying to get humanitarian aid in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of Palestinians killed while seeking aid to 2,605, with over 19,124 others wounded since May 27.
The Israeli army resumed its attacks on the Gaza Strip on March 18 and has since killed 13,549 people and injured 57,542 others, shattering a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement that took hold in January.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense 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 war on the enclave.
2 years of genocide: Gaza aid workers face hunger, death alongside those they help
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
2 years of genocide: Gaza aid workers face hunger, death alongside those they help
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
A “perfect humanitarian storm” – that is how the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) describes Gaza, where aid workers endure the same hunger and fear as those they try to help, Anadolu reports.
The warning comes as Israel’s war nears its third year, following what aid agencies describe as the deadliest year on record for humanitarian workers – and 2025 is already following the same trajectory.
“Last year was the deadliest year on record for colleagues killed from different organizations – we’re talking about hundreds,” IFRC spokesperson Tommaso Della Longa told Anadolu. “The vast majority, sadly, are from Gaza, the West Bank and Sudan. And 2025 is already following the same trend.”
At least 265 aid workers had been killed worldwide as of Aug. 14, 2025, approaching the previous year’s toll of 383, according to the Aid Worker Security Database.
Latest figures from the UN show Israeli forces have killed at least 562 humanitarian workers in Gaza over the past two years, including 376 UN staff members and 54 staff and volunteers of the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
As violence against humanitarian workers reaches record levels, the IFRC warns that Gaza is at the heart of a trend threatening to make attacks on aid workers a new feature of war. “The risk here is to normalize something that should never be normalized,” said Della Longa, lamenting that people who devote their lives to saving others are instead “attacked, killed, wounded, detained.”
– Living with hunger and famine
Inside Gaza, where the UN officially declared famine in late August, the hardship is staggering. Aid workers describe colleagues telling children to go to bed early so they do not feel the hunger or holding on to a single piece of bread until the end of the day to give to their children.
“One colleague told me what it means to live with famine and hunger: you dream of food you cannot have, and when you finally get even a piece of bread, you must keep it for your child,” said Della Longa. “Then, after giving it to them, you have to say sorry and ask them to wait for more because you will not be able to provide. As a father myself, I found this absolutely shocking.”
Doctors and nurses in Gaza have been working frantically, often without rest and basic needs, enduring unimaginable personal loss and suffering while trying to save others falling prey to endless Israeli attacks.
Greta Thunberg ‘forced to hold’ Israeli flags while in custody: Report
“There was never anyone to replace them … even for a couple of days. They were killed, they were not protected, and now even they don’t know how to have meals during the day,” he said. “Weakening doctors and nurses means weakening entire communities.”
Carla Drysdale, a World Health Organization spokesperson, echoed the concern and drew attention to the attacks that not only destroyed the functionality of hospitals and ambulances, but also injured and killed thousands of health workers.
Both organizations say that without protection and access, humanitarian action in Gaza will remain paralyzed.
– ‘Impunity once risks impunity everywhere’
Over the past two years, Israel has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, and wounded nearly 170,000, according to figures from Palestinian authorities confirmed by the UN and other international organizations.
A UN independent international commission of inquiry concluded last month that Israel is committing genocide in the enclave, where its siege and blockade on all essentials has also triggered a famine that has killed more than 450 Palestinians, including over 150 children.
Earlier in August, UN experts warned that Israel’s targeted destruction of Gaza’s health system amounts to “medicide.”
In a statement, UN special rapporteurs Tlaleng Mofokeng and Francesca Albanese said Israel was “deliberately attacking and starving healthcare workers, paramedics and hospitals to wipe out medical care in the besieged enclave.”
“In addition to bearing witness to an ongoing genocide we are also bearing witness to a ‘medicide,’ a sinister component of the intentional creation of conditions calculated to destroy Palestinians in Gaza which constitutes an act of genocide,” the experts said.
Della Longa warned that the erosion of respect for aid workers is no longer confined to war zones.
“If you think about 10 years ago, talking about the protection of humanitarians in this way would have been not understandable, because you don’t attack humanitarians. This trend is so widely spread that it is really deeply concerning and shocking.”
He called for enforcement of respect for existing laws and stressed the need for mechanisms to end impunity.
“If there is impunity once, it means there would be impunity everywhere. This is a precedent that we cannot accept,” he said.
“The issue is the political will. Humanitarians must do the humanitarian work and call on governments to take their own responsibility,” he said.
He concluded with one plea: “Don’t shoot the Red Cross. Don’t shoot humanitarians. Don’t shoot the people who are saving lives and alleviating suffering.”
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.