The Green Parties across the UK, the Scottish Greens, the Green Party of Northern Ireland, the Green Party of England and Wales, and the Welsh Green Party have today issued a rare joint call on the BBC to withdraw from the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest coverage if Israel’s state broadcaster is permitted to participate.
Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
In a letter to BBC Director-General Tim Davie, the four Green Parties warn that Israel’s assault on Gaza since October 2023 has left more than 64,000 Palestinians dead, over 160,000 injured, and entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble. UN officials have repeatedly said Israel’s actions bear the hallmarks of genocide. British Green Parties have repeatedly called on the British state to act in line with the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The leaders also highlighted Gaza as the deadliest conflict for journalists ever recorded, with more reporters killed there in the last two years than worldwide in the three years before combined.
Green party leader Zack Polanski (Green Party of England and Wales). Image: Bristol Green Party Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
Zack Polanski, Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, said:
“Eurovision is supposed to stand for peace, shared humanity and a lot of fun. Those values cannot coexist with complicity in genocide. By standing alongside Israel’s state broadcaster, the BBC would not just be ignoring the mass killing of civilians, it would also be turning its back on journalists being silenced and murdered for telling the truth. That is indefensible.”
Broadcasters across Europe are already taking action. Ireland’s RTÉ and Slovenia’s RTVSLO have pledged to withdraw if Israel participates, while Spain’s Culture Minister has raised the same, and Iceland is consulting the public. The BBC cannot stay neutral in genocide.”
Ross Greer, Co-Leader of the Scottish Greens, said:
“We’ve been here before. In the fight against apartheid South Africa, cultural boycotts were vital in telling oppressive regimes they would not be normalised. The same principle applies today. Israel must not be allowed to use Eurovision as a platform to launder its reputation while committing atrocities.”
Malachai O’Hara, Leader of the Green Party of Northern Ireland, said:
“This is a moment for moral clarity. Either the BBC stands on the side of peace, justice and international law – or it lends legitimacy to a state committing mass human rights abuses. The choice could not be starker.”
Anthony Slaughter, Leader of the Welsh Green Party added:
“The UK cannot look away while children starve, while families are bombed from their homes, while an entire people are brutalised. The BBC has a responsibility to act, and the time to act is now.”
The joint letter concludes:
“The Eurovision Song Contest is supposed to celebrate peace, unity, and shared humanity. Those values cannot coexist whilst arming a genocide. We therefore call on the BBC, in the strongest possible terms, to withdraw from the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest if Israel’s state broadcaster is permitted to participate. In the face of genocide, we urge you to act.”
A view of one of the displays at the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) UK, September 11, 2025
ANTI-ARMS campaigners have lodged a criminal complaint with the Met Police’s war crimes unit, accusing exhibitionists at the DSEI arms fair “aiding and abetting” Israel’s offences in Gaza.
The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) said it had reported the criminal liability of several individuals linked to atrocities in Gaza who attended the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) fair at the ExCeL Centre in London, last week
Of the hundreds of companies present, 51 were Israeli firms, including Elbit Systems, Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries — all named in a UN report as central to Israel’s military genocide in Gaza.
Under terrorism laws, it is an offence to engage in “conduct ancillary” to war crimes or crimes against humanity, including aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring such offences.
A CAAT spokesperson said: “These are the arms companies arming the [Israel Defence Force].
“These are the arms companies facilitating and profiting from Israel bombing hospitals, killing journalists and creating a man-made famine.
“UK law is clear — these individuals should be investigated for crimes against humanity, not invited to profit from the unspeakable devastation they have caused in Gaza.”
dizzy: Article quoted in full, very short to select a small section.
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.Vote Labour for Genocide.
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Palestinians run to safer places after Israeli airstrike at the Shati Refugee Camp, leaving casualties and injuries on September 11, 2025, in Gaza. [Khames Alrefi – Anadolu Agency]
At least 64,718 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip since October 2023, as seven more people, including a child, died of starvation in the besieged enclave, the Health Ministry said on Thursday.
A ministry statement said that 72 bodies were brought to hospitals in the last 24 hours, while 356 people were injured, taking the number of injuries to 163,859 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.
The ministry also noted that nine Palestinians were killed and over 87 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 2,465, with over 17,948 others wounded since 27 May.
The ministry said that seven more Palestinians, including a child, died of malnutrition and starvation in the last 24 hours. This brought the famine-linked death toll since October 2023 to 411 people, including 142 children.
According to the ministry, 133 of the deaths, 27 of them children, occurred after the UN-backed hunger monitoring system, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), formally declared Gaza a famine zone last month.
Since 2 March, the Israeli authorities have completely closed all Gaza border crossings, pushing the territory’s 2.4 million population into famine.
The Israeli army resumed its attacks on the Gaza Strip on 18 March and has since killed 12,170 people and injured 51,818 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 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 war on the enclave.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Smoke rises from an explosion, after an Israeli strike, in Doha, Qatar, September 9, 2025. Photo: UGC via AP
QATAR’S Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani is demanding a “collective response” to Israel’s deadly attack on the Qatari capital Doha.
Sheikh Mohammed told US news channel CNN on Wednesday that “there is a response that will happen from the region. This response is currently under consultation and discussion with other partners in the region, adding that “the entire Gulf region is at risk.”
He accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of leading the region into “chaos” and hoped the response from Arab nations would be “something meaningful that deters Israel from continuing this bullying.”
The Qataris plan to host an Arab-Islamic summit on Sunday and Monday, the country’s QNA news agency reported.
Sheikh Mohammed also said that the Israeli strike was aimed at undermining “any chance of peace” in Gaza.
He said: “I think that what [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu did yesterday — he just killed any hope for those [Israeli] hostages.” Twenty captives are believed to be still alive in Gaza.
Even as there was widespread international condemnation of the attack on Doha, the Israeli prime minister threatened further attacks, saying that “Qatar and all nations who harbour terrorists, you either expel them or you bring them to justice. Because if you don’t, we will.”
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.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Palestinians flee with their belongings amid Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood on August 12, 2025. (Photo by Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“This is the latest chapter in the genocide that Israel is committing in Gaza and part of a broader campaign of ethnic cleansing engulfing the entire Gaza Strip,” said Oxfam International.
Israel’s US-backed campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza City has left nearly 1 million people—half of them starved by design—with nowhere to seek refuge, United Nations agencies and other humanitarian groups warned Wednesday.
“We are witnessing a dangerous escalation in Gaza City, where Israeli forces have stepped up their operations and ordered everyone to move south. This comes two weeks after famine was confirmed in the city and surrounding areas,” said the UN Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), a strategic forum of UN agency heads and over 200 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
“While Israeli authorities have unilaterally declared an area in the south as ‘humanitarian,’ it has not taken effective steps to ensure the safety of those forced to move there and neither the size nor scale of services provided is fit to support those already there, let alone new arrivals,” HCT continued.
“Nearly 1 million people are now left with no safe or viable options—neither the north nor the south offers safety,” HCT added.
With no safe place left in #Gaza, UN and NGOs call for a ceasefire and protection from forced displacement.
One elderly woman caring for an injured 8-year-old girl who is one of tens of thousands of children orphaned by Israeli attacks toldAmnesty International Wednesday that “she’s all that I have left, and I have tried everything I can to protect her.”
“We have been displaced twice just in the last week,” the woman added. “We don’t have the means to go to the south, and we are tired of being forced to relive this ordeal all over again.”
An elderly disabled woman living in a makeshift refugee camp in southern Gaza City told Amnesty that “we were displaced from Sheikh Radwan three weeks ago; my son had to carry me on his shoulders because I have no wheelchair and no transportation could reach our area.”
“Now we are ordered to evacuate again. Where do we go?” she asked. “To secure transportation to the south, you have to pay close to 4,000 shekels ($1,200) and to buy a tent, you have to pay at least 3,000 shekels and we don’t know if we’ll find any land to pitch our tent on.”
“We had already spent all our savings to survive this war, looking for food and basics,” the woman added. “Every day is like the war is starting all over again, only far worse, but we are totally depleted, we have no will or strength to carry on.”
Photos showing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians—including some with donkey-drawn carts—slowly streaming southward from Gaza City evoked images from the Nakba, when more than 750,000 Arabs were ethnically cleansed from Palestine by Zionist terror militias during the establishment of modern Israel.
More than 200,000 Palestinians displaced from Gaza City amid escalating Israeli air strikes and humanitarian crises in besieged areas — in pictures https://t.co/uH1p22Ln61pic.twitter.com/PMcmVIBHs8
The World Health Organization (WHO), a UN body, warned Wednesday that “starvation and malnutrition in Gaza are at the highest levels ever since the conflict began almost two years ago,” and that “deliberate blocking and delay of large-scale food, health, and humanitarian aid has cost many lives.”
“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterized by starvation, destitution, and death,” the agency added. “Another 1.07 million people (54%) are in ‘emergency’ (IPC Phase 4), and 396,000 people (20%) are in ‘crisis’ (IPC Phase 3).”
WHO also cited overall casualties in Gaza—now approaching at least 65,000 deaths, mostly women and children—and 164,000 injuries, according to the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM)—and noted that “as of September 5, 2025, there have been 2,339 reported fatalities among aid-seekers near militarized distribution sites and along convoy routes since May 27.”
Oxfam International—a coalition of over 20 independent NGOs focused on alleviating poverty—echoed the UN experts, asserting that “Israel’s intent to displace around 1 million civilians, half of whom are living in famine, is impossible and illegal.”
“Displacement orders, on leaflets thrown from the sky, or posted on social media, signal grave next steps, a scene all too familiar in Gaza where every order has preceded new waves of destruction and mass casualties,” Oxfam said. “This is the latest chapter in the genocide that Israel is committing in Gaza and part of a broader campaign of ethnic cleansing engulfing the entire Gaza Strip, where nothing and no one has been spared.”
Heba Morayef, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said Wednesday that Israel’s mass displacement order for Gaza City residents “is cruel, unlawful, and further compounds the genocidal conditions of life that Israel is inflicting on Palestinians.”
“Gaza City… is now facing complete obliteration,” Morayef added. “It is evident that Israel is determined in pursuing its goal to physically destroy Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It is unconscionable that states with leverage over Israel continue to provide it with arms and diplomatic support to destroy Palestinian lives.”
Operation Gideon’s Chariots 2—Israel’s plan to ”conquer, cleanse, and stay” in Gaza and “annihilate everything” there—as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently put it—has ramped up in recent days, with intensified Israeli air and artillery strikes and ground troops pushing deeper into Gaza City.
According to GHM, at least 72 Palestinians were killed and a minimum of 356 others were wounded by Israeli forces across Gaza on Thursday, including children and infants. At least 53 of the victims were killed in Gaza City. Israeli strikes reportedly targeted homes, tents housing refugees, and aid distribution points.
Additionally, GHM said that seven Palestinians including a child died from starvation over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of famine-related deaths in Gaza to at least 411, 142 of them children.
A view of one of the displays at the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) UK, September 11, 2025
