25. Gaza Massacre 2018-19 during the Great March of Return
26. Israel’s Operation Guardian of Walls, 2021
27. Gaza Genocide 2023 is still ongoing.
Let’s kill the myth that October 7th was the start. It wasn’t. Israel’s violence didn’t appear overnight, It began in 1948, and even before, when armed Zionist militias invaded Palestinian villages, burned homes, expelled families, and slaughtered men, women, and children to make way for their Jewish state. The world calls it the birth of Israel. Palestinians call it the Nakba, the catastrophe.
The Nakba, meaning "catastrophe" in Arabic, refers to the displacement of approximately 700,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It occurred as Arab states invaded the newly declared State of Israel, leading to the exodus or expulsion of Palestinians from areas that became Israeli territory.
Palestinians view it as a national tragedy marking the loss of their homeland.From Deir Yassin to Tantura, from Kafr Qasim to Sabra and Shatila, Israel’s history is written in massacres. Entire generations were uprooted and turned into refugees. Cities like Jaffa and Haifa, were emptied, their people driven out at gunpoint.
This wasn’t a war between equal sides. It was a colonial conquest, supported and legitimized by Western powers that saw in Israel a loyal outpost to control the Middle East. Read about the genocide of the Palestinians. History has repeated itself many times throughout the ages..
Long before any armed resistance groups existed, Palestinians were massacred, expelled, and ethnically cleansed during the 1948 Nakba. Cities like Yafa, Haifa, Lydd, and Acre were emptied, their people driven out, their homes seized — the blueprint of today’s oppression was already in motion.
For 75+ years, Israel has violated every international law imaginable, occupying land, annexing territory, assassinating leaders, bombing civilians, and enforcing apartheid. Yet, the so-called international community rewards it with impunity, weapons, and unconditional support.
October 7th was preceded by 8 decades of Zionist violence, dispossession, unlawful occupation, massacres, brutalisation, apartheid, murder ethnic cleansing, and the denial of Palestinian self-determination. October 7th was the explosion of a wound left open for 76 years The most shocking thing about October 7 is that it didn’t happen sooner.
The apartheid regime has bulldozed homes, stolen land, starved children, and caged millions under military rule and then feigns shock when resistance erupts. October 7 was an uprising by an occupied people against 76 years of illegal colonisation and the world's longest, most brutal military siege. Who in their right mind would trap over 2 million humans in a weapon testing, starvation death camp, and not expect them to try break out?
Palestinians have lived through a thousand October 7ths, untelevised, uncounted, ungrieved. Each siege, each massacre, each bombing of a school or hospital, each child buried beneath rubble while the world debated “proportionality.” What happened on October 7 was a mirror, briefly held up to a world that had long refused to look.
To frame Oct 7 without this history is to erase the daily terror Palestinians endure, checkpoints, bombardments, blockades, and the slow suffocation of life itself.
The truth is that the occupation breeds the cycle of violence, and the so-called “war on Hamas” is nothing more than a cover for mass ethnic cleansing and land theft. Now that Netanyahu has dropped the mask, openly declaring permanent occupation and annexation, the world has no excuse for inaction. This is not about “security” it’s about expansion, impunity, and a regime operating above every law. The U.S., bankrolling this horror with $3.8B a year, is not an innocent bystander it is a full partner in crime If justice is to mean anything, both Israel and the U.S. must be brought before international courts, sanctioned, and isolated until the machinery of apartheid and genocide is dismantled. Otherwise, Oct 7 will not be remembered as a turning point, but as proof the world abandoned its own laws when they mattered most.
Between 7 October 2023 and 22 October 2025, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza, as stated by OCHA, at least 68,234 Palestinians have been reportedly killed in the Gaza Strip and 170,373 have been injured.
UNRWA recorded over 380 workers killed since the war began (309 UNRWA personnel, in addition to 72 persons who were supporting UNRWA activities), as at 26 October 2025.
UNRWA ran out of food at the end of April. The Agency has not been allowed to bring in any humanitarian assistance including food for almost eight months (since 2 March 2025).
The Israeli authorities have not granted the Agency’s international staff visas or permits to enter the occupied Palestinian territory, including Gaza, since the end of January 2025.
Israel has never sought peace and will never seek it. Anyone who believes otherwise is delusional. Israel is a war machine, an entity built on violence and occupation.
To truly understand this, we must reflect on the past 76 years of terrorism inflicted on the Palestinian people. In 2025, there have been over 860 violent settler attacks in the West Bank. World Leaders have a legal obligation to dismantle Israel’s unlawful occupation and to bring its system of apartheid to an end.
There can be no going back to pre-7th Oct days where the world ignores Zionist aggression.
Israel is currently bombing tents again with F35 jets. They have bombed the vicinity of Shifa Hospital, west of Gaza city, al-Shati refugee camp and just east of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
Two years since October 7, we must confront an urgent truth: the genocide in Palestine did not begin on that day, and it has not ended. They commit genocide with impunity. Israel continues to kill, starve, maim, and displace the Palestinians of Gaza despite the three-week-old truce, There was no ceasefire, they broke it every single day.
In Gaza amid the destruction, people still cry out. Do not forget them , do not stay silent. Keep your eyes open, raise your voice, and stand with Palestine. Ensure there is justice and accountability. And we must not waver in our efforts to ensure a future where the Palestinians are free, and justice is restored, and they are finally liberated from occupation.
Irish Republican revolutionary, philosopher, poet, playwright, Irish language and cultural revivalist, patriot, Terence James MacSwiney died in Brixton Prison on 25th Oct 1920 after 74 days on hunger strike.
“If I die I know the fruit will exceed the cost a thousand fold. The thought of it makes me happy. I thank God for it. Ah, Cathal, the pain of Easter week is properly dead at last.”
Terence MacSwiney wrote these words in a letter to Cathal Brugha on September 30, 1920, the 39th day of his hunger strike. The pain he refers to is that caused by his failure to partake in the 1916 Easter Rising. Contradictory orders from Dublin and the failure of the arms ship, the Aud, to land arms in Tralee left the Volunteers in Cork unprepared for insurrection.
He was born on 28 March 1879 into a staunchly nationalist, Cork Catholic family at 23 North Main Street, Cork, County Cork, one of eight children of John and Mary MacSwiney. His father, John MacSwiney, of Cork, had volunteered in 1868 to fight as a papal guard against Garibaldi, had been a schoolteacher in London and later opened a tobacco factory in Cork. Following the failure of this business, he emigrated to Australia in 1885 leaving Terence and the other children in the care of their mother and his eldest daughter.
MacSwiney’s mother, Mary Wilkinson, was an English Catholic with strong Irish nationalist opinions.
MacSwiney is educated by the Christian Brothers at the North Monastery school in Cork but leaves at fifteen to help support the family. He becomes an accountancy clerk but continues his studies and matriculates successfully. He continues in full-time employment while he studies at the Royal University (now University College Cork), graduating with a degree in Mental and Moral Science in 1907.
In 1899 he joined the Gaelic League and remained an active supporter of the Irish language throughout his life, establishing Irish language classes with Tomás MacCurtain, and co-founding the Cork Celtic Literary Society which adopted a broad nationalist programme, and the Cork Dramatic Society with the writer and academic Daniel Corkery.
MacSwiney was a teacher, poet and playwright, and his play The Revolutionist, was described by historian Patrick Maume as “an important statement of MacSwiney’s philosophy of self-sacrifice”.
The Corkman believed that the sacrifice of the few could unite a people and mobilise the nation for freedom. In his collection of political writings, Principles of Freedom, he wrote “It is love of country that inspires us; not hate of the enemy …’”
Described as a sensitive poet-intellectual, MacSwiney’s writings in the newspaper Irish Freedom bring him to the attention of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He is one of the founders of the Cork Brigade of the Irish Volunteers in 1913 and is President of the Cork branch of Sinn Féin. He founds a newspaper, Fianna Fáil, in 1914, but it is suppressed after only 11 issues.
In April 1916, he is intended to be second in command of the Easter Rising in Cork and Kerry but stands down his forces on the order of Eoin MacNeill.
Following the rising, MacSwiney is imprisoned by the British Government under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 and was imprisoned in Frongoch internment camp in Wales and later in Bromyard internment camps until his release in June 1917.
While he was still in Bromyard that he marries Muriel Murphy of the Cork distillery-owning family. Terence and Muriel had one child, Máire, born in 1918. Máire would later marry Ruairí Brugha, son of another famous Republican, Cathal Brugha.
In November 1917, he is arrested in Cork for wearing an Irish Republican Army (IRA) uniform, and inspired by the example of Thomas Ashe, goes on a hunger strike for three days prior to his release.
In the 1918 Irish general election, MacSwiney is returned unopposed to the first Dáil Éireann as Sinn Féin representative for Mid Cork, succeeding the Nationalist MP D. D. Sheehan.
After the murder of his friend Tomás Mac Curtain, the Lord Mayor of Cork on March 20, 1920, he is elected as Lord Mayor. A deeply religious man, during his acceptance speech made when he was elected Lord Mayor of Cork, he said of Ireland’s long fight for freedom: “It is not those who can inflict the most, but those who can suffer the most who will conquer.”
He was elected not only by the ballot box but with the blood of his predecessor, Tomás Mac Curtain. Mac Curtain had been Cork City’s first mayor to be elected by running on a Republican ticket, and he had won it despite the continual suppression of the party’s platform by British authorities.
In reprisal for his success, Mac Curtain was gunned down in his own bedroom at dawn by a squad of masked men—later revealed to be Crown Forces in disguise.
They had burst into Mac Curtain’s home and fired point-blank into the sleeping mayor as his wife and children cowered nearby. Due to the enforced curfew and martial law, his panicked children risked their lives by running to fetch the doctor for their mortally wounded father.
Mac Curtain died in the arms of his pregnant wife who found the soulful courage to remind him “this is for Ireland, Tomás.” It was his thirty-sixth birthday.
Tomás Mac Curtain (1884-1920)
The gory warning cloaked in this assassination was clear: the citizenry of Cork should think twice before electing any more free thinkers. No trial followed; the British Parliamentary inquest blamed “masked and unknown men,” but bragging by local British officials for having orchestrated it fuelled outrage.
When the Mayor of nearby Limerick was similarly assassinated in front of his family a mere two months later, shockingly the British Parliament agreed it was a perturbing coincidence, but declined further inquiry.
On August 12, 1920, MacSwiney is arrested in Cork for possession of “seditous articles and documents,” and also possession of a cipher key. He is summarily tried by a court on August 16 and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and was shipped to London’s Brixton Prison for incarceration, making a mockery of the supposed justice system in place in his native land. MacSwiney declared before the tribunal, ‘I have decided the term of my imprisonment. Whatever your government may do, I shall be free, alive or dead, within a month.’
At Brixton MacSwiney immediately joined his fellow Irish Republican prisoners on hunger strike, with the aim of demanding Britain acknowledge him and his fellows as political prisoners.
This was no new tactic for the Irish, following a long tradition of fasting against injustice prevalent in ancient Ireland. and was met with no mercy at the hands of English guards. With MacSwiney being a duly elected Lord Mayor and the most high-profile striker at Brixton, he became an international celebrity, his emaciated features broadcast in newspapers from Dublin to Delhi.
It was of the utmost importance for the British to break his spirit and force a retraction from him; the ordeal proved harrowing. Force-fed through tubes that tore his throat, MacSwiney endured convulsions and delirium, indignities and veiled threats towards the welfare of his wife and infant child. Undaunted herself by these threats, Muriel MacSwiney travelled to London with her baby daughter Máire, pleading for clemency at Westminster’s gates and joining the crowds that swelled outside Brixton Prison, chanting Gaelic hymns to encourage the strikers.
Enthralled by MacSwiney breaking all previous records for a prisoner going without food, the international press afforded the case so much coverage that Ireland’s War of Independence and the cause of Irish freedom as suddenly parachuted onto the world stage ,and worldwide media attention. Crowds gathered to pray and protest at Brixton prison and King George V privately appealed to the British government for clemency and was even considering over-ruling Prime Minister Lloyd George and enduring a constitutional crisis. .
Messages of support poured in from around the world – a telegram sent from the mayor of New York to Lloyd George urged him to end the “the imprisonment of Lord Mayor MacSwiney whose heroic fortitude in representing even unto death the opinions of the citizens who elected him has won the admiration of all the peoples who believe in rule of the people by the people”.
10,000 people protested in Glasgow. The British newspaper The Observer noted “the majority of public opinion and of the press in Great Britain is unquestionably for the Lord Mayor’s release”.
As the hunger strike continued, the British government was threatened with a boycott of English goods by North America, and four countries in South America appealed to the Pope to intervene in the standoff.
Terence MacSwiney drew his final breath after 74 days kept as a political prisoner. At age forty-one, the poet-turned-revolutionary slipped away in the arms of his brother and a prison chaplain, his body a skeletal testament to an unyielding will. His last words to a priest by his side were, “I want you to bear witness that I die as a soldier of the Irish Republic.”
MacSwiney’s death was no quiet surrender; it served as a lurid exclamation mark in Ireland’s gruesome War for Independence, a death that reverberated across the Atlantic.
Pictures of MacSwiney’s beautiful widow Muriel MacSwiney clutching her infant child upon collecting her husband’s body circulated in papers across the globe, and incited outrage that shamed an empire.
Protests were held as far away as India and Chicago and widespread condemnation of the death and treatment of Terrence MacSwiney and his colleagues on hunger strike were issued around the world.
Yet it was across the Atlantic that his sacrifice kindled the fiercest flame. Irish America, with its millions of descendants nursing old grievances, erupted in solidarity. New York City declared a day of mourning on October 26; Broadway theaters dimmed their lights, factories sounded sirens, and at noon, every citizen paused in silence—a “city frozen in grief,” as the New York Times reported.
Vigils blazed for weeks: in Boston’s Fenway Park, 50,000 gathered under torchlight, reciting the Rosary; Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral hosted masses where priests thundered against British “barbarism.”
Funds poured in—over $1 million (a fortune then) for the Irish cause, funneled through the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland. In Pittsburgh, 5,000 crammed the Lyceum Theater on Halloween night, 1920, to hear eulogies for MacSwiney.
MacSwiney's body lay in St. George’s Cathedral, Southwark in London where 30,000 people file past it. Fearing large-scale demonstrations in Dublin, the authorities divert his coffin directly to Cork. MacSwiney’s coffin arrived in Cork and escorted it to City hall where it laid in State.
On the 31st of October after funeral mass in Cork Cathedral, up to 100,000 lined the streets as MacSwiney was taken to the republican plot and buried beside his friend Tomás MacCurtain. Arthur Griffith then President of Sinn Féin delivered the graveside oration.
Funeral procession of Terence MacSwiney in Cork
MacSwiney left no grand monument—only a legacy of suffering transmuted into strength. “That we shall win our freedom I have no doubt,” he had mused in prison, “that we shall use it well I am not so certain.”
His coffin bore the inscription “Murdered by the Foreigner in Brixton Prison” in Gaelic, directly showing his ties to Irish republicanism, culture, and anti-British sentiment.
Hailed as a martyr for Ireland for his courage and bravery, in daring to defy England. His hunger strike raised awareness of the political situation in Ireland. His death also hastened the Anglo-Irish Treaty which came about one year later, forcing Britain into peace talks and paving the way to an independent Irish Republic. He also left a body of writing that encompassed poetry, political philosophy and ideas for Ireland's economic development.
MacSwiney's life and work had a particular impact in India. Jawaharlal Nehru took inspiration from MacSwiney's example and writings, and Mahatma Gandhi counted him among his influences. A Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2023/03/marking-revolutionary-freedom-fighter.html was an admirer of Terence MacSwiney and wrote about him in his memoirs.
Other figures beyond India who counted MacSwiney as an influence include Ho Chi Minh who was working in London at the time of MacSwiney's death and said of him, "A nation that has such citizens will never surrender". On 1 November 1920, the Catalan organization CADCI held a demonstration in Barcelona, where the poet and politician Ventura Gassol delivered an original poem extolling MacSwiney.
Terence MacSwiney became a symbol for many Irish Nationalists. His decision to go on a hunger strike and later death cemented the use of food and hunger strike as a form of resistance against the British. The British might be able to control the location and treatment of the Irish prisoners, but the Irish prisoners’ refusal to eat signifies the reassertion of direct control over their bodies, directly defying the British.
MacSwiney’s actions and words “articulated a philosophy of self-sacrifice that would help define the emerging traditions of Irish republican martyrdom”. This element of self-sacrifice was seen throughout the psyche of IRA members like Brendan Hughes, Bobby Sands, and Dolours Price. Bobby Sands and Dolours Price are particularly good examples of how far they took the idea of self-sacrifice as they actually went on hunger strike, with Bobby Sands paying the ultimate price of death.
Irish republican Bobby Sands https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2021/05/remembering-bobby-sands.html also defied England by going on hunger strike in 1981. His goal: to be recognized as a political prisoner. After weeks of fasting, his hunger strike led to his death provoking an international outcry just as it did for MacSwiney in 1920.
MacSwiney’s impact on Bobby Sands can be seen through the entries in Sands’ prison diary which documents his first seventeen days on hunger strike. He starts with invoking the ideas of martyrdom and sacrifice associated with MacSwiney, writing: “I believe I am but another of those wretched Irishmen born of a risen generation with a deeply rooted and unquenchable desire for freedom” (Sands). This shows how Sands believes that his role is to continue the struggle and sacrifice himself like MacSwiney did for the cause of Irish freedom.
Sands continues to invoke MacSwiney throughout his diary, writing that MacSwiney is “in my thoughts” as he continued the process of his hunger strike (Sands).
Towards the end of his prison diary and hunger strike, Sands writes: “I have poems in my mind, mediocre no doubt, poems of hunger strike and MacSwiney, and everything that this hunger-strike has stirred up in my heart and in my mind, but the weariness is slowly creeping in, and my heart is willing but my body wants to be lazy, so I have decided to mass all my energy and thoughts into consolidating my resistance” (Sands).
This is particularly telling of MacSwiney’s impact on Sands in many ways. Sands is imitating MacSwiney not only through writing poetry but also through hunger strike, showing how Sands truly did want to emulate MacSwiney in more ways than one. Thinking about MacSwiney reminded Sands of the purpose of his hunger strike and gave him the strength to continue his resistance, showing MacSwiney’s impact on future generations of Republicans.
Sources and Further Reading
Principles of Freedom (Dublin: The Talbot Press, 1921) - Terence MacSwiney
Despite Fools' Laughter. Poems by Terence MacSwiney; edited by B. G. MacCarthy (Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, 1944).
Enduring the Most: The Life and Death of Terence MacSwiney by Francis J. Costello,
Terence MacSwiney: The Hunger Strike that Rocked an Empire by Dave Hannigan,
The Art and Ideology of Terence MacSwiney by Gabriel Doherty and Fiona Brennan
O’Farrell, Fergus. 2018. “Brixton Remembers One of Ireland’s Most Famous Hunger Strikers.” The Irish Times. Oct. 18.
A British soldier charged with murder over the Bloody Sunday massacre has been acquitted by a Belfast court, in a verdict condemned by victims’ relatives and Northern Ireland’s political leaders.
The former British paratrooper, known as Soldier F under a court anonymity order, was accused of murdering James Wray and William McKinney and attempting to murder five others when soldiers opened fire on unarmed Catholic civil rights marchers in Derry more than 50 years ago.
That day on 30 January 1972 in Derry, Northern Ireland, 13 innocent peaceful Irish Catholics were murdered in broad daylight by the British army, many more were injured as they were marching for their basic freedoms and civil rights, under almost siege like conditions under unjust British rule in the city and across Northern Ireland, in what is regarded.as one the darkest days of Northern Ireland's troubles.
The civil rights protestors were shot in the Bogside by British soldiers from the Parachute Regiment. The protestors were opposing the policy of internment which allowed the authorities to imprison suspected members of the IRA without trial. On 9 August, 11, British soldiers detained 342 people, many of whom were tortured and had no connection to the IRA .
This disastrous policy led to an immediate increase in violence, with 17 people killed within the next 48 hours. On 22 January 1972, soldiers attacked an anti-internment protest in Derry, firing rubber bullets and beating protestors severely.
However the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was determined not to be intimidated. so on 30 January 1972 around 10,000 people marched towards the city centre, but their route was blocked by army barricades. Here and there, some stones and bottles were thrown at the troops but collectively the marchers posed little threat to the well armed British soldiers, who exceptionally on this day were members of an elite parachute regiment, thus trained for combat, not policing crowds. At some point for reasons that as never been established, British soldiers began firing into the crowd of civilians.
Soon many were falling to the ground.
All of the dead were unarmed, five were shot in the back. Most were shot fleeing the soldiers and several were killed trying to assist the wounded. One man was shot and killed while assisting a victim and waving a white handkerchief another killed with his arms raised in surrender position. Seven of them were teenagers. Another marcher died a month later and there were many more wounded from rubber bullets.
The massacre became a worldwide symbol of state brutality – and community resilience. Which was followed by decades of state lies, cover-ups and smears against the victims, Bloody Sunday became one of the most notorious massacres in British military history.
It took decades for the British State to recognise that those killed on Bloody Sunday were innocent - that what was done was “unjustified and unjustifiable”. The Saville report concluded that those killed on Bloody Sunday posed no threat to the British army. They were innocent civilians murdered in an act of state violence. Over fifteen years ago, the then British Prime Minister publicly acknowledged the role of British soldiers on Bloody Sunday. The families and survivors have carried a weight of injustice that few of us will ever understand.
Today a judge has found a British soldier not guilty for his role in the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1972, a huge setback for a 53-year-long campaign for justice.
After a campaign spanning five decades, the prosecution of a single soldier finally began in September. ‘Soldier F’ was one of 18 former soldiers reported to prosecutors as a result of an investigation which followed the second public inquiry into Bloody Sunday.
The decision to charge him was only taken in 2019 under intense pressure from the families of the victims. Two years later, the case was suddenly dropped, but resumed in 2022 after a legal challenge.
The Bloody Sunday massacre was planned and authorised by men of far higher rank than the scruffs like Soldier F who pulled the triggers. F and the other killers merely did what was expected of them, what they’d been ordered to do, what they’d repeatedly done before in the far-flung reaches of Empire.
Evidence from 20 civilian witnesses was presented during the five weeks of the non-jury trial trial. For over two hours Judge Patrick Lynch recapped the evidence.
He praised the Bloody Sunday families for their ‘quiet dignity’, attending court each day, and revealed Soldier F had attended each day, sitting behind a screen where only the judge could see him.
But there was profound shock in the courtroon as the judge announced he had been cleared of the murders of James Wray and William McKinney, and attempting to murder five others.
Delivering his judgment, the judge said the evidence presented by the prosecution “falls below” the standard needed for conviction.
He added that the court was “constrained and limited by the evidence put before it”.
The judge spoke of the difficulty that the passage of time - it is almost 54 years since Bloody Sunday - presents to the legal process. Statements in the trial were 53 years old and documents have been destroyed or have gone missing.
The judge also cast doubt on statements, previously described as decisive evidence, from two other British soldiers, as he said they appeared to have told lies on several occasions.
“Their statements, the sole and decisive evidence, cannot be tested in a way that witnesses giving evidence from the witness box would be,” he said.
“Delay has, in my view, seriously hampered the capacity of the defence to test the veracity and accuracy of the hearsay statements.
“The two witnesses are themselves, on the basis of the Crown case guilty of murder as, in essence, accomplices with a motivation to name F as a participant in their murderous activities.
“I find that they have been serially untruthful about matters central to events giving rise to this prosecution.
“They have committed perjury, G once to the Widgery Inquiry and H twice to the Widgery and Saville Inquiries.
“This is the evidence the Crown present as proving the guilt of F. Whatever suspicions the court may have about the role of F, this court is constrained and limited by the evidence properly presented before it.
“To convict it has to be upon evidence that is convincing and manifestly reliable.
“The evidence presented by the Crown falls well short of this standard and signally fails to reach the high standard of proof required in a criminal case; that of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
“Therefore, I find the accused not guilty on all seven counts on the present bill of indictment.”
Bloody Sunday families and supporters walked to the Royal Courts of Justice on Thursday ahead of the verdict
First Minister Michelle O'Neill said it was "deeply disappointing" that the Bloody Sunday families faced a "continued denial of justice". "For more than five decades, they have campaigned with dignity and resilience for justice for their loved ones, their deeply cherished sons and fathers, uncles and brothers," the Sinn Féin deputy leader said.
Foyle Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) MP Colum Eastwood said it was a "difficult day" for the Bloody Sunday families, but said they could "hold their heads up high". "It is absolutely clear that those soldiers, including Soldier F, shot and killed people on Bloody Sunday,"
Eastwood said. "These were innocent people, no weapons, just on a civil rights march, mowed down by the Parachute Regiment of the British Army. That's what happened and that's absolutely clear."
Soldier F being found not guilty for the murders of innocent civilians on Bloody Sunday shows that nothing has changed in Britain since the 1970s.Bloody Sunday is the most notorious example of state violence in the north , but it is not unique. Across the north of Ireland, hundreds of families bereaved by the British faced the same brick wall: no investigation, no disclosure, no accountability,
The British army has covered up crimes for over 50 years and there are still no prosecutions for their actions nor has a single British combatant ever been convicted for the crimes perpetrated that day.
Whether found guilty or not with lack of evidence, British Soldiers are guilty of murder.
There is no British justice in Ireland! An absolute disgrace.
Solidarity with families and friends of Bloody Sunday victims. They are an inspiration to the world. For over 50 years they have kept their heads held high, their voice determined, their dignity in tact!
King Charles last week stripped his younger brother of his Royal titles following more embarrassing revelations over the prince's friendship with late US paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Royal sources told how the King had grown “weary and furious” over the continuing tide of scandal plaguing the monarchy and told Andrew that drastic action was needed to stem it. Andrew agreed following the phone call to give up his titles except prince. He will no longer be Duke of York or a Knight of the Garter – the world’s oldest order of chivalry.
Prince Andrew has announced that after consulting with King Charles he has given up his Duke of York title. The move comes ahead of the posthumous release of Virginia Giuffre's memoir next week, which is speculated to include more accusations against the royal, all of which he denies. "In discussion with The King, and my immediate and wider family, we have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the Royal Family," Andrew said in a statement released by Buckingham Palace on Friday evening,
"I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life. "With His Majesty's agreement, we feel I must now go a step further. I will therefore no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me. "As I have said previously, I vigorously deny the accusations against me."
The bombshell came seven months after the suicide of Virginia Giuffre who was trafficked by billionaire Epstein and says she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times.
However Prince Andrew is still a vice admiral in the Royal Navy. He was given the rank by his mum for his 55th birthday, in an act of blatant nepotism. Any other officer would have been dishonourably discharged by now.
Relinquishing his dukedom won't impact Andrew's living arrangements, with the prince to remain at Royal Lodge in Windsor. While the royal has given up all of his titles and honours voluntarily, there's one that can't be taken away from him, and that is the title of prince.
No real consequences for this arrogant, entitled and pompous, shit. He stated in that now infamous interview with Emily Maitlis that "he learnt a lot from Epstein" His ex-wife is no better. The fact that Andrew and Fergie have stayed living together is like two addicts mutually feeding each other’s awfulness. Fergie is at least as morally bankrupt as him - she’s the ultimate hanger-on. Anywhere there’s free food, a free holiday and a money-making opportunity you’d find Fergie. They absolutely deserve each other. Disgusting pair.
Giuffre's memoirs claim Andrew insisted she sign a one-year gag order to prevent details of her allegations tarnishing the late Queen's platinum jubilee. It was only ever about protecting their reputation and not protecting the victim. The Queen paid for her silence, the monarchy itself financed silence in a sex abuse scandal. Unprecedented.
The Royals are only asking Andrew to stop using his titles to protect themselves and ensure that William can take the throne having moved on from a scandal. Charles and William have protected Andrew for all these years.
Now the media is making them out as heroes for slapping him on the wrist. The Royal family didn’t do anything about Prince Andrew, like they didn’t do anything about Lord Louis Mountbatten before him. Prince Andrew isn’t a one off. It’s a pattern of privilege and abuse of power, which at its core, is the definition of this monarchy.
Buckingham Palace has issued a statement encouraging people to focus on the King's work rather than other matters. Translation - Hey plebs stop holding the Royal family to account for their crimes and get back to blindly worshipping them. They are all complicit including the late Queen, the Prince Andrew scandal shows very clearly that the monarchy puts its own interests first, not country.
This statement will do nothing to limit the ongoing reputational damage to the Royal Family. Much firmer steps need to be taken. Especially as we are likely have weeks and months of more drip-feed revelations to come.
Prince Andrew not using a handful of titles, that shouldn't even exist in a modern democracy is an empty gesture to keep 'The Firm' in business. Epstein's pal will continue his gilded existence in a £30m mansion on the Windsor Estate.
Only an Act of Parliament can remove these titles but these politicians in Labour and Tories are not willing to do so. Seems like the government protects the Royal family so the public think they are above the law, Parliament must now show leadership and remove all Prince Andrew’s titles. It shouldn’t be a voluntary matter.
The latest scandal has highlighted the fact that the monarchy is an undemocratic, antiquated relic that serves no useful purpose in the 21st century. Far from uniting the country, the monarchy's role is seen by many people to be illegitimate and offensive, and simply entrenches hereditary privilege at the heart of public life.
While our government patronisisingly preaches democracy to the rest of the world, they still preside over an undemocratic system at home with an unelected head of state .With their vestiges of privilege, the royal family continues to award themselves medals, appoint themselves to top military ranks that they simply they do not deserve. Allow themselves to be nominated as patrons of charities , degrading the real efforts of those who have really made general contributions.
While the Royals get there houses refurbished at tax payers expense, so many people cannot afford to heat their homes or put enough nutritional meals on their tables. In this context this continuing fawning to members of the Royal family and their hangers on, I simply find offensive.
It certainly reinforces my feelings that some people are born better than others. It's the pinnacle of the class system which has held our society back for so long, enforcing the idea of an elite ruling class. Their nauseating displays of riches, power and privilege ,is simply an affront to human decency.
The Monarchy has absolutely nothing to offer anyone. The only stability it provides is to entrench the UK class system. The monarchy is a relic of feudalism, perpetuating a system of privilege and inequality.
The British monarchy also has a global history of the slaughter and destruction of indigenous people. Their rapacious greed consumes them, they are a curse on humanity. Broken? Dysfunctional? That’s the monarchy in a nutshell a gilded mess propped up by scandals and shady deals, cozy with Middle Eastern money while the public pays the price.
Sir Keir Starmer once wanted to abolish the Monarchy, and King Charles hates socialism. Only one changed their mind. And it wasn't Charles.
Charles is an advert for the failures of hereditary power, whether it’s his temperament or his hypocrisy on the environment, flying by helicopter to Cambridge to lecture scientists on the need for the rest of us to cut our carbon emissions.
King Charles will also avoid inheritance tax on his mother’s vast estate, estimated to be worth in excess of £650m. There is absolutely no moral justification for this tax avoidance, and the new monarch could voluntarily pay his due, but doesn’t.
The palace itself is not fit for purpose, falling well short of the standards in public life against which we measure other institutions, such as spending vast amounts of public money on private residences, something MPs lost their jobs for during the expenses scandal.
The Royal family are an outdated and Dickensian afterthought from the empire, They cost us more than they actually bring into the economy and are not representative of today's modern society.
The monarchy is supported financially by UK taxpayers via the Sovereign Grant, which covers central staffing costs and expenses for the monarch’s official households, maintenance of the royal palaces in England, and travel and royal engagements and visits.
Accounts for 2024/25 show that the Sovereign Grant that financial year remained at £86.3 million. Yet the “real cost” to taxpayers is nearly six times more, said anti-monarchy campaigners.
Republic, which calls for the abolition of the monarchy, claims the official figure does not account for security, and other "lost income" for taxpayers, including from property businesses controlled by the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, which go directly to the King and the Prince of Wales respectively. Republic says the royals' total annual bill is in fact £510 million. "How can we talk about cutting the winter fuel allowance while wasting half a billion pounds on the royals?" Republic's chief executive, Graham Smith, told the BBC last September.
Republic and other anti-monarchists argue that "hereditary public office goes against every democratic principle". The public cannot hold the royal family to account at the ballot box, so "there's nothing to stop them abusing their privilege, misusing their influence or simply wasting our money".
Rather than notions of fair play, the monarchy perpetuates notions of nepotism, feudal concepts of bloodlines and elitism.
I believe in a society, where we can all look into one another's eyes as equals , whatever our purpose or position in life. This continuing deference to them is embarrassing. Support for the monarchy is now at its lowest level with more people than ever questioning the future of an institution we have never voted for and that many feel increasingly alienated from.
The cost of living crisis and the increasingly obvious chasm between the struggles of ordinary people and the taxpayer-funded luxury of the royals is just one reason opinion polls have been shifting.
Your energy bills went up recently - again. Your food bills are continuing to rise steeply. Your council tax went up but the services go down. Yet in the last month we’ve seen golden carriages travel through London and displays of obscene inherited wealth with the monarchy celebrating the presence of a fascist.
An unaccountable billionaire family bankrolled by the public purse. To become a fairer egalitarian country it’s time to finally abolish the parasitic monarchy and confine these pointless ornaments to the dustbins of history once and for all. Open up all their private millions of acres to normal citizens. Enough is enough!
Before anyone mentions ‘tourism’ Versailles welcomes more tourists after the Royal families hasty departure in 1789 following the French Revolution. Today the Palace of Versailles is the most visited Palace on the planet.
The Royal family and tourism is a myth perpetrated by the Royal Family. It is long past time for them to go and leave the money taken from us, behind them. Bring on the republic.
October 10th marks World Mental Health Day. It’s a day that should be every day of the year. Mental health isn’t a trend it’s part of who we are. One in five of us have a mental health condition. You probably know and love somebody who struggles with their mental health, even if you don’t realise it.
So why is there still such a stigma about discussing it?
Among the most menacing barriers to the social progress we need around mental health are the profound levels of guilt, shame and stigma that surround these issues. Mental illness scares us and shames us. Those who suffer are often, like me, ashamed to speak of it. Those who are lucky enough to be free of mental illness are terrified of it.
When it comes to mental illness, we still don't quite get how it all works. Our treatments, while sometimes effective, often are not. And the symptoms, involving a fundamental breakdown of our perceived reality, are existentially terrifying. There is something almost random about physical illness, in how it comes upon us , a physical illness can strike anyone – and that is almost comforting.
But mental illness seems to fall into that same category, the fact it too could strike any of us, without warning should be equally recognised.
But more than simple fear, mental illness brings out a judgmental streak that would be unthinkably grotesque when applied to physical illness. Imagine telling someone with a broken leg to "snap out of it."
Imagine that a death by cancer was accompanied by the same smug headshaking that so often greets death by suicide. Mental illness is so qualitatively different that we feel it permissible to be judgmental. We might even go so far as to blame the sufferer. Because of the stigma involved it often leaves us much sicker.
Capitalist society also teaches us that we are each personally responsible for our own success. A system of blame that somehow makes the emotional and psychological difficulties we encounter seem to be our own fault.
This belief is such a firm part of ruling class ideology that millions of people who would never openly articulate this idea, nonetheless accept it in subtle and overt ways. People are often ashamed that they need medication, seeing this as revealing some constitutional weakness. People feel guilty about needing therapy, thinking that they should be able to solve their problems on their own.
Millions of people fail to seek any treatment, because mental health care is seen as something that only the most dramatically unstable person would turn to. An ill-informed and damaging attitude among some people exists around mental health that can make it difficult for some to seek help. It is estimated that only about a quarter of people with a mental health problem in the UK receive ongoing treatment, leaving the majority of people grappling with mental health issues on their own, seeking help or information, and dependent on the informal support of family, friends or colleagues.
A reminder it’s ok not to be ok! There’s no shame in resting, no shame in struggling, no shame in asking for help. If you’re struggling, whether it’s because of illness, grief, burnout, or just the quiet weight of the bloody world, please don't suffer in silence, reach out and get the help you need.
And I'll remind you that you don’t have to be positive all the time. You don’t have to be healed to be worthy. The world needs your story, even if it’s still messy. Please don’t give up. It’s important to be kind to yourself, to reflect for a minute that you are loved and important to others.
Mental health should be a "universal human right” but for too many, it’s still out of reach. Mental health isn’t a luxury. It’s a foundation, It’s about dignity, access, and connection. This year’s theme is 'access to services - mental health in catastrophes and emergencies'. reminds us that support must be accessible when the world feels most unstable. In times of crisis, headlines often heighten feelings of worry and helplessness. It also highlights the importance of people being able to protect their mental health whatever they're going through, because everyone deserves good mental health.
And the urgent need to ensure mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) reaches people affected by conflict, disaster, and displacement. In 2025, this call is more pressing than ever as humanitarian needs continue to rise worldwide.
In emergencies, one in three people experience a mental health condition, and one in twenty face severe conditions. Displacement and disrupted health systems make access to care even harder, particularly for migrants, who often face legal and social barriers even before crises.
Providing mental health care during emergencies isn’t just compassionate, it’s life-saving. It gives people the strength to cope, the space to heal, and the tools to rebuild,not just as individuals, but as families, communities, and societies.
That’s why this year’s theme calls on all of us, from government leaders and healthcare providers to educators, social care workers, and community groups, to come together. Because when we act collectively, we can ensure that even in the darkest moments, no one is left behind.
So much of what’s labelled a mental health crisis is actually a systemic failure crisis. When people live in poverty, with untreated chronic illnesses, inaccessible healthcare, and constant disability discrimination, anxiety and depression aren’t disorders, they’re symptoms of survival. You can’t “therapy” your way out of medical gaslighting, financial instability, or being left behind by the systems meant to protect you. If we truly want to improve mental health, we must address the conditions that cause distress, such as poverty, chronic illness, and disability, not just the emotions that result from them. Mental health is not separate from public health, economic policy, or disability rights. It’s all connected.
Would like to say a big fuck you to the Labour Government and the DWP who are doing their utmost to minimise the struggles of people suffering with mental health issues and to regress attitudes back to a time when "pull your socks up" was an accepted response. We don’t want job coaches we want a decent mental health service. On this World Mental Health Day, together we must ensure that all people affected by crises have access to the care they need.
Would like though to give a big thank you to all who have given me kindness, listening, understanding and laughter, been much appreciated at times. Sending love to those who need it , especially those in Gaza in this present time 💚
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Northern Gaza, known for his unwavering courage and resilience during the ongoing military operation by the Israeli Army, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize after Doctors for Gaza from the Netherlands put his name forward.
A Palestinian paediatrician and neonatologist, Abu Safiya was born on 21 November 1973 at Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza, his family having been kicked out from Hamama during the 1948 Nakba.
With each passing month, the toll deepened. His son was killed, his hospital repeatedly struck, and his life threatened. Still, he remained at Kamal Adwan.
His resilience was captured in a 10-second video: a lone pediatrician in a white coat walking through rubble toward Israeli forces. To the world, it symbolized defiance. To his family and colleagues, it reflected who he always was.
By late 2024, as Israel intensified its campaign to drive Palestinians out of northern Gaza, hospitals became both sanctuaries and targets. Kamal Adwan, a 300-bed facility already battered by shortages and bombardment, became a focal point of that campaign.
On December 27, 2024, Israeli forces stormed the hospital, detaining 240 staff and patients, stripping them, and rendering the facility inoperable. Dr. Abu Safiya, who refused to abandon his post, was beaten and taken into custody under Israel’s “Unlawful Combatant Law,” with no charges or release date.
The Nobel Peace Prize nomination recognises his unwavering refusal to evacuate the hospital’s neonatal and paediatric wards during israeli military raids in late 2024, when most international and UN personnel were ordered to leave.
Under bombardment, Dr. Abu Safiya stayed beside his patients and staff, maintaining operations with dwindling oxygen, power, and medicine a decision that saved the lives of premature infants who would not have survived evacuation.
On 27 December 2024, israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital and arrested Dr. Abu Safiya along with several medical workers. He has remained detained without charge in israeli custody since that date.
Despite international appeals for his release, israel continues to hold him, accusing him of “collaboration with Hamas” a charge condemned by international legal experts as collective punishment against Gaza’s health sector.
His arrest came just weeks after his 15-year-old son was killed by an israeli drone strike near the hospital grounds an attack that also damaged its paediatric wing.
The Doctors for Gaza network in the Netherlands launched his Nobel nomination to highlight the courage of Gaza’s medical workers, who continued treating children and civilians under siege conditions.
The group stated that his nomination is “a moral call to honour humanity under fire to recognise every doctor, nurse, and paramedic who chose duty over safety in the face of genocide.”
Human rights advocates say this nomination carries global significance representing the ethical resistance of Gaza’s health professionals, many of whom have been killed, arrested, or disappeared since 2023.
Dr. Abu Safiya’s decision to remain with his patients and to provide medical care at Kamal Adwan when Northern Gaza was under siege has become a symbol of Gaza’s endurance and moral defiance, embodying the principle that life itself must be protected even in the ruins of war.
Since his arrest, Dr. Abu Safiya has reportedly been held under harsh and abusive conditions: Denied adequate medical care. Suffering serious health issues: heart enlargement, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat.
On August 28, a lawyer was able to visit Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who now held in Ofer Prison along with his nephew, Hussam Zaher, in appalling conditions: Sunlight only 30 minutes a month. Suffering from severe scabies, boils, and skin infections. Forced to wear the same clothes with only infrequent two-minute baths. Each has lost a third of their body weight. They urgently need dermatologists and medicine for treatment.
Dr. Abu Safiyas, health worsened following violent interrogations at Sde Teiman prison and poor conditions in Ofer prison, where he was subjected to solitary confinement, physical abuse including beatings and other mistreatment.
Dr. Abu Safiya’s message from prison: “I entered in the name of humanity, and I will leave in the name of humanity… We will remain on our land and continue to provide healthcare services to the people, God willing, even from a tent.”
Dr. Abu Safiya has become a symbol of Gaza’s crumbling healthcare system under dire conditions. His work and arrest have drawn international attention and concern. He served his patients under Israeli bombardment: amid hunger, deceit, and scarce medical supplies.
Even after his son was killed in the siege meant to break him, he refused to leave and was kidnapped in his white coat. If anyone embodies peace, it’s him. A truly noble man.
Every child in every school, and every medical student around the world should be able to recognize the name and face of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, and learn some facts about his biography, and what Israel and its Western collaborators did to him, his colleagues, his patients, and his people. Dr. Abu Safiya is a hero and a model for humanity.
Dr Abu Safiya has now been held in Israeli captivity for 353 days, being subjected to torture, inhumane living conditions and medical neglect. No charges have been brought against him. What is Israel holding him for?
In the following,,through first hand testimony, archival footage, and on-the-ground reporting, Fault Lines investigates the assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital, the raid that led to Dr. Abu Safiya’s unlawful detention, and the broader targeting of Gaza’s healthcare system.
The Disappearance of Dr. Abu Safiya : Fault Lines Documentary
According to human rights organizations, more than 1,670 Palestinian health workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, and at least 362 doctors, nurses, and paramedics remain in detention.
In an open letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Doctors for Gaza described Abu Safiya as “a symbol of Palestinian medical resistance and compassion that survives even under fire.” The international petition in support of his candidacy has gathered more than 34,000 signatures in less than a week.
There's been a lot of discussion about worthy people like Francesca Albanese or Greta Thunberg winning a Nobel Peace Prize. I would like to see the prize go to a Palestinian like Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. This is not virtue signalling. He deserves it and this would send a positive message to the world.
The Nobel Peace Prize was once the world’s most prestigious recognition of leadership in the pursuit of peace. Today, its credibility is collapsing.
The prize has become an institution of the very Western powers complicit in the genocide in Gaza, and has a history of being awarded to war criminals like Obama and Kissinger. Furthermore, centering Western figures erases the Palestinian people themselves, who are the true faces of this struggle, their journalists, doctors, and families.
Our solidarity should amplify Palestinian voices, not replace them. For that reason I urge you to stand for justice and humanity by signing the international petition in support of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya candidancy and sharing the petition widely. With less than 24 hours remaining, every signature matters!.https://rightsforum.org/petitie/support-dr-abu-safiya-nobel-peace-prize/
After 733 days of genocide, ethnic cleansing, destruction, mass killings, bombings, starvation, forced displacement, and over 70,000 killed with tens of thousands injured and missing, Gaza ceasefire agreement has been reached. I am currently happy that Gaza Families might get a break in Israel's violent terrorism
let’s ensure the ceasefire is respected (last time Israel didn't), that aid flows in without barriers, Israel's illegal occupation and apartheid in Palestine are dismantled and genocide perpetrators are held accountable.
At the same time Free Dr Hussam Abu Safiya and lets not forget the 10,000 Palestinians, including Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, and the children imprisoned without charge or trial in jails, suffering torture and inhumane abuse, and risking the death penalty reinstated by the Genocidal State. Free Palestine.
I was deeply saddened by the news of the attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in north Manchester. And condemn this horrific act of violence that has taken the lives of two innocent people and injured many more. My heart went out to the Jewish community and all those affected by this appalling attack on such an important and holy day in the Jewish calendar.
We must be unequivocal and be united in our condemnation of all hatred and violence in our society that only deepen division among communities. The synagogue’s Rabbi it is important to note though also supported the United Jewish Israel Appeal, which is Britain’s major fundraising org for the Zionist regime.
The synagogue also supports the IDF. Moreover, it’s associated with Chabad Lubavitch, a fiercely Zionist organisation that materially supports Israel across its 5,000 branches dotted around the world and has not offered no words, no empathy themselves for the children, babies savagely bombed and shot in Gaza. That isn’t controversial to point out. You can oppose the violence in Manchester without distorting reality.
On Saturday there was also a terror attack on the Peacehaven mosque, which is located in a suburb just outside Brighton. This arson attack followed a months-long campaign of intimidation and has left the local Muslim community feeling terrified. Am equally saddened by this incident.
But it has not garnered wall-to-wall coverage. No urgent statements from Starmer or Lammy announcing police protection for mosques. No collective blame placed on white people. No calls for accountability. The racist double standard couldn’t be clearer, the hypocrisy is blinding.
This was Keir Starmer just 90 minutes after the attack on the Heaton Park Synagogue. As of yet, not a mention on the terror attack on the Peacehaven mosque. I'm sure he's just been busy.
"I’m appalled by the attack at a synagogue in Crumpsall. The fact that this has taken place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, makes it all the more horrific. My thoughts are with the loved ones of all those affected, and my thanks go to the emergency services and all the first responders."
If leaders can swiftly condemn a synagogue attack, they must do the same to condemn attacls on mosgues, a terrorist attack on a mosque that was downgraded to a hate crime as the perpetrator/s were white and the victims were Muslim.
Remember the attack on the mosque in Peacehaven did not happen in a vacuum. For months, right-wing outlets like GB News and parts of the British press have been smearing the entire pro-Palestine movement as extremist, terror-linked or un-British.
They have helped create an atmosphere where showing solidarity with Palestine is seen as dangerous and where Muslims are portrayed as a threat from within. This constant fear-mongering fuels hate, emboldens extremists, and makes attacks like the one in Peacehaven not only possible but predictable. When a white man sets fire to a mosque, it is treated as an isolated incident. When Muslims march for peace or justice, it is framed as a national security concern. The same media that gives airtime to far-right talking points suddenly goes quiet when hate turns into violence.
This is not just about one mosque or one attack. It is about the toxic climate built day after day by networks that dehumanise Muslims, demonise solidarity and whitewash state violence abroad.
The Peacehaven attack is not separate from the headlines, talk show panels, or political dog whistles. It is their logical outcome. We must continue to confront the poison of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in equal measure.
I'm also appalled that Israeli forces boarded vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla last week in international waters and illegally detained those on board, including a number of British citizens. Has Keir Starmer made an announcement about this too and condemned Israel?
Today on the anniversary of October 7th, my sympathy remains with the Palestinian people. I cried and raged this morning on hearing on Today that it is “unBritish” for students to demonstrate for Palestine on this anniversary of October 7 when ….. blah, blah.
What we need now is a brave politician like the beloved Tony Benn to walk into a BBC news studio, thump the desk and say: most of the dead were killed by Israel under the Hannibal Directive. The lies that they were all killed by Hamas have been debunked by the Israeli media time and time again. It is so important to point this out.
Today it is October 7 in Gaza. Marking two years of a genocide. Two years of bombs, murder, pain, starvation, grief, and loss. But it's also two years of steadfastness, endurance, faith, and resistance. Two years of resuscitating the very humanity of our world. Free Gaza. Free Palestine.
The Global Sumud Flotilla which was on a peaceful mission seeking to bring humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip has been intercepted by the Israeli navy in international waters bringing about global condemnation and outrage.
The Global Sumud Flotilla had been sailing towards Gaza with more than 40 civilian boats carrying about 500 people. Among them were parliamentarians from various countries, lawyers activists, and hundreds of humanitarians, journalists, and other noteworthy figures from dozens of countries around the world.
They included the late South African President Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela; American actress Susan Sarandon; former Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau; and multiple other European politicians. including the Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.
The Guardian reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) boarded at least two vessels roughly 75 miles away from Gaza. A livestream from the flotilla showed signals from boat after boat going dark after the convoy was surrounded by over 20 Israeli naval ships.
Activists aboard the Gaza aid flotilla accused Israeli forces of "illegally intercepting" their vessels and coming aboard as the flotilla approached the Israeli blockade.
According to Drop Site News, whose editor Alex Colston has been reporting from one of the vessels—by midnight local time, at least six boats from the flotilla had been intercepted and boarded by the IDF. After midnight, one sailor shared on the livestream that Israeli ships were spraying the flotilla boats with water cannons.
By 1:00 am, the stream only showed the Meteque, where sailors held their hands above their heads as the IDF ordered them to stop their engine. An earlier video from flotilla activists shows the moment that Brazilian organizer Thiago Ávila received a message from an IDF soldier who ordered the flotilla to turn around. “You are entering an active war zone,” the soldier is heard saying over an intercom. “If you attempt to breach the naval blockade, we will stop your vessel and act to confiscate it through legal proceedings in court.”
In response, Ávila pointed to the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures on Gaza and the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ávila asked Israeli forces to “stand down,” “not commit another war crime,” and “not engage with our peaceful, nonviolent, humanitarian solidarity mission for the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
The flotilla, carrying urgently needed food, medicine, and humanitarian supplies, set sail set sail from Barcelona a few weeks ago,after nearly two years of Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and 18 years of an illegal near-total blockade that has left Palestinians in Gaza deliberately starved and deprived of essentials, as part of Israel's ongoing unlawful occupation of the Palestinian territory.
The persistent inaction of states in the face of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip forced activists from across the world to take peaceful measures to break the siege. But not content with genocide, starvation, torture, the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure and targeting of medical facilities and personnel, Israel is now violating all laws of the sea in attacking dozens of boats manned by the bravest of the brave in international waters.
No aid the flotilla could have brought Gaza would have been even remotely sufficient in alleviating the horrors of the genocide. That was not the point. The flotilla meant to reveal Israel for what it is - capable of unleashing its tremendous power exclusively against civilians, interested only in cementing its strangle hold on Gaza so it can continue its genocide, now silently approved by the "peace deal" discussed in Washington,
While caring only for demonstrating it's impunity and supremacy, with hateful intentions. By blocking a humanitarian mission, and unarmed civilians carrying life-saving humanitarian supplies for Gaza, Israel has shown utter contempt not only for the rights of the Palestinian people but also for the conscience of the world. No amount of propaganda will undo what we're witnessing here.
The flotilla embodies solidarity, compassion and the hope of relief for those under blockade. Netanyahu and his far right fascist regime can pay influencers all they want but no amount of money is going to make people forget this cowardly display in international waters. The flotilla attack is not just an assault at sea, It’s an assault on the conscience of humanity! Shame on all those that remain complicit.
A group of United Nations experts warned in early September that any attempt by Israel to stop the vessels from delivering aid “would constitute a grave violation of international law and humanitarian principles.”
Throughout their journey toward Gaza, the flotilla members have faced numerous threats from the Israeli government, which has attempted to smear the humanitarian mission as an effort to advance the agenda of Hamas.
Last week, while still off the coast of Greece, the flotilla was swarmed with drones and attacked with flash-bang grenades believed to have been launched by Israel, which has a history of targeting such missions. That attack initially led the governed the governments of Italy and Spain to send naval ships to offer protection to the flotilla, but they have since turned back as the boats moved closer to Gaza.
The actions by Israel have generated outrage and displays of solidarity from across the globe. “History will side with the flotilla,” said former UK Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, who remains in Parliament. “And their bravery will only inspire more people to join our global movement for Palestine.”
Turkey’s foreign ministry described the interception as a “terrorist act... which targeted civilians acting peacefully,” while Colombian President Gustavo Petro booted the entire Israeli diplomatic delegation from his country immediately following the news.
People of conscience have now been abducted. The flotilla broke no laws. What is illegal is Israel’s genocide, and the criminal entity known as Israel which will not allow a single vessel to reach the starving. Even mercy is blockaded.
Participants on board were assaulted and detained in yet another act of piracy. A state so terrified of compassion it blockades bread and medicine and uses starvation as a weapon.
Solidarity is currently surging as people globally rally in support of the Global Sumud Flotilla following the illegal Israeli interception. In Barcelona, hundreds of outraged protesters gathered outside the Israeli consulate.
Similar scenes broke out in other cities around the world, including Sweden, Istanbul, Germany and Brussels, while major Italian trade unions CGIL and USB have announced a 24-hour general strike for October 3, 2025, as per their promise if the Gaza flotilla was attacked, as it has been now. Unions accuse the Italian government of failing to protect its citizens aboard the vessels.
Even with the flotillas interception it reminds us of the power of humanity. When leaders failed, ordinary people stepped up and risked their lives to do what’s right. Israel has weapons, the flotilla had the world. They stood on the right side of history.
Despite Israeli Interception and Intimidation Israeli forces have detained 223 international activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla. Despite more than 40 reported interceptions, one vessel, Mikeno, successfully broke through and reached Palestinian waters for the first time in a historic development, breaching the Israeli blockade.
It is one of the rare times throughout history that fleets move from West to East or south in order to help and not invade, and yet it is prevented. This world has a lot of good, but only bad people control it.
The illegal detention of Global Sumud Flotilla activists, and the confiscation of vital aid just miles from a starving population in Gaza, is a crime against humanity.
Israel is still enforcing a complete blockade on Gaza, using starvation as a weapon of war against children, women, and men. Humanity must not look the other way. The courage and human decency of the activists on the flotilla, is to be commended.
Their brave actions stand in stark contrast to that of Israeli war criminals. We must continue to press the British Government to end their complicity in genocide, impose serious sanctions on Israel, and join international calls for the urgent release of flotilla activists. We must condemn in the strongest terms Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla.
The interception of the flotilla in international waters is contrary to international law and violates the sovereignty of every nation whose flag was flown on the dozens of vessels in the flotilla. This action also violates an International Court of Justice injunction that humanitarian aid must be allowed to flow unimpeded.
My thoughts are with all of the abductees and their families and it is my expectation that Israel will release the human rights activists as these abductions serve no purpose in the context of efforts to secure peace in the Middle East.
These vessels carried unarmed civilians and life-saving humanitarian supplies for Gaza, yet they were met with intimidation and coercion all were lying in a passive position or sitting in a passive position on the deck in the cockpit. They had trained to not respond, not do anything aggressive at all in response to anything that Israel would do or say. Israel's actions are a war crime.
The Sumud Flotilla's main goal was to draw attention to the genocide in Gaza that mainstream media is disappearing from headlines and Western politicians are looking away from if not actively complicit in. The least we can do is speak up and condemn in the strongest terms Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla. The bravery of the Global Sumud Flotilla puts our own cowardly Government to shame.
In Britain, a powerful response to this is to keep building and escalating the Palestine movement.
Pkease Email your MPs now to demand protection for the UK citizens illegally kidnapped by the IOF.
4 October, join the witness circle at the Defend Our Juries action against the Palestine Action ban. Go to DOJ for details. https://defendourjuries.net/
11 October, national demonstration for Palestine. Go to stopwar.org.uk for more details. https://www.stopwar.org.uk/
Keep calling for the full lifting of the siege and unrestricted humanitarian access for food, water, medicine, fuel, and other essentials. An end to the use of starvation as a weapon of war.
As long as the Palestinian people are denied their fundamental rights and aspirations, we must stand unflinchingly with them. And not relent in demanding an end to the injustice and dispossession that have plagued Palestine for generations. We cannot remain silent while the foundations of life are being destroyed.
And will add only Palestinians deserve to determine their future, not Tony Blair, Donald Trump or Benjamin Netanyahu! Real peace is not imposed by Washington and Tel Aviv. It comes from ending the siege, ending the genocide , ending the occupation and giving Palestinians their freedom and dignity back. Free Palestine.
