Palestine

In the wake of the United Nations Security Council rubber-stamping Donald Trump’s plans for Gaza — including the creation of a so-called “board of peace” and a militarized “international stabilization force” — the very notion of rebuilding is slipping through the cracks, overshadowed by what is framed as the more urgent need to keep the peace in place. But peace manufactured this way is nothing…

Western media has failed to accurately describe events at the heart of an Israeli military scandal, after the country’s top military lawyer was arrested for leaking footage of IDF soldiers allegedly gang-raping a Palestinian prisoner in a detention centre.

The attack was so brutal that the man was hospitalised with a ruptured bowel and intestines, severe anal and lung injuries and broken ribs. He needed multiple surgical operations for his injuries. The soldiers “inserted a sharp object into [his] anus and ripped his rectum apart”, according to Mondoweiss.

However, Western mainstream media outlets including Sky News, the BBC, Channel 4, The Guardian, The Financial Times, Bloomberg, The Times, The Telegraph and The Independent have failed to use the word ‘rape’ in their headlines when reporting on the story. The incident has been largely referred to as ‘abuse’.

The victim was being held without justification in notorious Israeli torture camp Sde Teiman – a military base in the Negev desert where Palestinians are subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment such as being held in cages, blindfolded, shackled to hospital beds, attacked by dogs and forced to wear nappies. He was never charged with or tried for any crime.

Major general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi admitted last week that she had leaked footage of the alleged gang rape of the Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman in August 2024. She was arrested on 2 November and has been charged with multiple offences, including fraud, breach of trust, obstruction of justice and abuse of office.

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the leak “perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the State of Israel has experienced”. His energy minister, Eli Cohen, took to Israeli TV over the weekend to say that Tomer-Yerushalm was “supposed to be the bulletproof vest, the protector, of the soldiers.

“Instead of that, she stabbed them in the back… In this case, we are talking about treason.”

Defence minister Israel Katz accused Tomer-Yerushalm of participating in “blood libel” against the alleged rapists.

Tomer-Yerushalm leaked the video after prosecutors faced widespread protests and political outrage in Israel for taking the “vanishingly rare” step of investigating the alleged abuse and rape of a Palestinian detainee. In her resignation letter, Tomer-Yerushalm said the leak was “an attempt to debunk false propaganda against army law enforcement bodies”.

The hospital the victim was taken to reportedly sparked the investigation by following procedures for victims of sexual assault.

Back in the summer of 2024, protesters gathered outside Sde Teiman calling for the investigation to be dropped in what were dubbed “right to rape” demonstrations on social media. They included Knesset member Nissim Vaturi from Netanyahu’s Likud party, far-right Religious Zionism Knesset member Zvi Sukkot and heritage minister Amichai Eliyahu from Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party. Some protesters broke into the military base.

Following the leak in August 2024, five IDF reservists were charged with aggravated abuse and causing serious bodily harm to a detainee. None were charged with rape. On 2 November, their charges were downgraded to “severely abusing” the detainee.

The soldiers have not been named and are currently not in custody or under any legal restrictions.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal told Novara Media: “The documented evidence of the torture and killing of Palestinian detainees is yet another aspect of Israel’s genocidal campaign. The vile crime of rape at Sde Teiman is not an isolated case but part of a pattern of dehumanisation and abuse.

“Together with the extensive efforts to cover it up, persecution of the whistleblower and public appearances by the soldiers who [allegedly] committed the rape, it shows that Israel is not the liberal democracy that the British government and much of the media like to pretend it is.

“Israel will never investigate and punish these crimes because they are state sanctioned. The British government must end all its support to this genocidal state.”

Since 7 October 2023, one Israeli soldier has been convicted for assaulting Palestinians in detention during the war. This is despite reports of widespread abuse and torture of Palestinian detainees in Israeli facilities throughout the past two years of Israel’s war on Gaza.

As part of the 10 October ceasefire deal, Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, and the bodies of nearly 200 Palestinians, in exchange for Hamas returning all living hostages and the bodies of deceased hostages. Doctors, officials and family members report that the bodies of Palestinians returned by Israel show clear signs of torture and execution. Before the exchange, Israel was estimated to be holding nearly 10,000 Palestinians in its prisons, detention centres, interrogation centres and military courts – including children. More than 3,400 were administrative detainees and held without charge or trial.

No soldiers in Israel have been charged for killing civilians in Gaza. At least 68,000 Palestinians – including 20,000 children – have been killed by Israel in Gaza since October 2023.

The PR company CMS Strategic that reportedly planted a false story in the Times about Palestine Action has a series of intimate connections to the shadowy pro-Israel lobby group We Believe in Israel (WBII). This is of course the same WBII that boasted its role in machinating the proscription of the group.

What’s more, vis-a-vis these WBII ties, the firm appears to have a wealth of links to the Labour Party and key figures in government.

Palestine Action Iran funding smear: PR firm exposed

As the Canary’s Alex/Rose Cocker detailed, the article in question had claimed – completely without basis – that the Home Office was investigating Palestine Action receiving funding from Iran.

However, repeated Home Office denials over the allegations had suggested for a while that something else was afoot.

Private Eye had previously approached the Home Office over the Times article. However, according to the magazine, this was only for it to come back and say that it did not recognise the claim.

The Canary had also submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Home Office. But once again, the Home Office confirmed that it had not supplied any information directly to the Times for the story.

At the time, there was a mainstream media frenzy from the usual suspects. GB News, the Daily Mail, the BBC, the Telegraph, and the Spectator all ran a series of stories trumpeting the potential Iran link. Declassified UK traced them all back to the dubious claims in the Times article.

Now, Private Eye has revealed how:

CMS Strategic has acted as Elbit’s UK PR firm for some years. A witness known by the Eye heard Georgia Pickering, CMS’s managing director and owner, claiming credit for getting a story into newspapers about Palestine Action, the “direct action” group that damaged Elbit factories and other premises the group says are linked to the war in Gaza.

Source of the Times claims – long unclear

Since the Times published the article, multiple outlets have speculated over the source of the claims.

The Guardian had highlighted how We Believe in Israel had tweeted just two days before the Times article calling Palestine Action a “shell front” and stating:

Behind Palestine Action’s theatre of resistance stands a darker puppeteer: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

It’s well documented that the Zionist lobby group was chief among those lobbying for Palestine Action’s proscription. In June, just weeks ahead of Palestine Action’s ban, it published a report titled Palestine Action: A Case for Proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000. And notably, the Guardian pointed out how home secretary Yvette Cooper’s statement on the decision to proscribe Palestine Action was “similar” to the wording from this report. WBII even boasted it was thanks to its briefing that the government decided to proscribe Palestine Action.

What’s more, the Canary has identified how WBII’s current director, Catherine Perez-Shakdam, had in the year leading up to Palestine Action’s proscription, penned op-eds not only calling for the ban, but also insinuating a link to Iran. Notably, in November 2024, she wrote an article calling Palestine Action activists “Tehran’s ideological sentries” and arguing that:

To look at Palestine Action is to see not an “activist” group, but an ideological proxy for the Iranian regime, operating as Tehran’s enforcers in a country they otherwise could never reach.

The piece goes to great lengths to paint Palestine Action as “proxies of a foreign power”, describing them as:

foot soldiers whose purpose is to inject Tehran’s twisted worldview into the heart of Britain’s public discourse.

At points, the article implies Palestine Action tactics are “inspired” by the Iranian regime. In others, she goes further to almost imply they are active foreign agents, making baseless claims like:

Tehran, unable to influence Britain directly, deploys groups like Palestine Action to project its authoritarian ethos across borders.

Of course, opinion article that it is, for the Zionist Times of Israel no less, Perez-Shakdam was compelled to provide no evidence for her conspiracist diatribe.

We Believe in Israel: cropping up again, naturally

To date, the Canary has been unable to source evidence of Perez-Shakdam and the numerous organisations she heads lobbying the Home Office. However, the Home Office has obviously categorically denied any role in seeding the story anyway – at least directly.

Now, these facts take on new significance in light of Private Eye’s revelations.

This is because, if CMS Strategic really did plant the story in the Times, its worth emphasising some particular links to WBII – and their timing.

To start with, there’s the company’s senior account executive Kira Lewis. Lewis joined CMS Strategic in March 2025 from the infamous Israel lobby group British Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM).

Of course, this was just months before the Labour government announced the proscription of Palestine Action. As the Canary’s Ed Sykes previously highlighted, We Believe in Israel is:

“a side-project” of BICOM – “Britain’s most active pro-Israeli lobbying organisation”. And its longstanding director was awful Labour right-winger and self-proclaimed “Zionist shitlord” Luke Akehurst (who isn’t Jewish, by the way).

And Lewis evidently has clear connections to the group, not least through her role with BICOM.

In July 2022, they penned an op-ed for Jewish News about their trip to Israel with:

the Labour Friends of Israel and the We Believe In Israel campaign group.

Then, in June 2024, they were out on the campaign trail for Akehurst. Akehurst only stepped down from his near 13-year stint as We Believe in Israel director that very same June.

What’s more, it appears CMS Strategic has made use of Lewis’s links with the parachute North Durham MP. In May, Labour First (where incidentally, Lewis also previously worked), hosted an event with chancellor Rachel Reeves.

In a LinkedIn post, Pickering posted chummy photos with the chancellor and thanked Akehurst for arranging for the company to support the event.

Labour links in abundance

What’s also apparent is that CMS Strategic has tangible inroads with this current Labour government as well.

Pickering is a Bracknell Labour Party councillor. Alongside this, she is also co-chair of Labour in Communications’ (LIC) defence and aerospace policy network group. The organisation describes its remit as:

Labour’s fastest-growing professional network of supporters working in the communications, media and public affairs industry.

In a LinkedIn post, Pickering put out a call to recruit new Labour Party members from the PR and defence sectors to the group. A group gathering together Labour members with defence lobbyist experience – nothing to see there of course.

Lewis, a Young Labour member, is also a Labour Party councillor, for Higham Hill. In 2023, they resigned their role as junior whip on the Waltham Forest council after posting a tweet stating that:

What Israel is doing is bad – killing thousands of innocent people, including children. But not evil. Hamas is evil.

Additionally, Lewis’s LinkedIn details a number of short-term gigs as an organiser for the party.

However, perhaps most significantly, as mentioned above, Lewis previously worked for Labour First. Journalist and author Paul Holden has described the group in his explosive new book as the “base camp for the Labour right’s overt fightback” against Corbyn and the party’s left-wing. By this, he was referring to the organisation’s very public efforts to oust Corbyn and his allies, namely by spearheading repeated coup attempts during his leadership.

And low and behold, Akehurst had his fingers in this pie too. He co-founded Labour First alongside former LFI vice-chair and MP John Spellar and Labour councillor Keith Dibble. Naturally, Akehurst is still a director.

CMS staff were also at the Labour Party’s 2025 conference arranging “1-1 discussions” for ministers, MPs, and “industry voices”.

CMS Strategic shilling for DSEI

Moreover, CMS is no stranger to publicly gloating about helping defence companies get coverage in the corporate media either:

So despite the company denying the claims from the Eye, it would be quite on-brand for Pickering to have boasted this – and for the company to be the actor behind the scenes.

As the Eye underscored, CMS has shilled for notorious Israel-linked arms corporation Elbit Systems. Of course, Palestine Action has long made the number one Israel arms manufacturer the main target of its direct action. The magazine also highlighted that in 2024 Palestine Action targeted CMS over its lobbying for the company.

Indeed, the PR firm is one of just two companies the arms producers has employed in recent years to lobby the UK government. CMS isn’t currently listed as its lobbyist.

However, CMS itself has maintained a murky menagerie of arms manufacturers amid its clientele. It was none other than CMS running media and comms for the UK’s largest arms fair Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI). In fact, Pickering was bragging about CMS delivering this for DSEI for the 10th time:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/georgia-pickering-60331b24/_dsei-defence-activity-7372595480180080640-m9DL?utm%5C_source=share&utm%5C_medium=member%5C_desktop&rcm=ACoAAF2OYo0BSE0SivVWCPD3hjkt%5C_6nXLu6%5C_qeA

This was the same DSEI that exhibited arms giants that have armed and sustained Israel’s genocide. It included drone and F35 manufacturers Elbit, Rafael, Lockhead Martin, and BAE.

Times peddling propaganda for CMS Strategic? What’s new

The Canary approached CMS Strategic and the Times for comment. We asked the Times whether it had verified that the Home Office were purportedly “understood” to be investigating Palestine Action’s funding and links to Iran. In addition, we queried if CMS/Georgia Pickering were the source for its article. The outlet did not respond by the time of publication.

Meanwhile, CMS Strategic came back with an identical comment to what it told the Eye:

Any suggestion that CMS was involved with The Times article dated 23 June 2025 or discussed being involved with it are categorically untrue.

Ultimately, the Times in its top-quality due diligence journalism, published what appear to be outrageously fabricated claims. Those claims may have originated from a long-term lobbyist and PR outfit for major arms companies abetting Israel’s genocide.

There’s no definitive proof – at present – that WBII had a hand in this. However, these connections to CMS Strategic do raise significant questions nonetheless. As its swagger around Palestine Action’s proscription underscores – pumping out propaganda sure wouldn’t be out of character.

Content warning: this article contains discussions of rape and sexual assault, which some readers may find upsetting

Israeli troops who (allegedly) raped a bound Palestinian prisoner so brutally that he almost died have appeared, masked, on Israeli TV to demand ‘justice’ and criticise those who condemned their actions and “tried to break us”.

Zionist Israelis are always the victim – even when it comes to rape they perpetrated

Their victim’s injuries were so severe that he almost died – and the senior military lawyer who leaked video of the crime has been arrested for causing Israel what wanted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu described as Israel’s worst ‘PR’ crisis.

But the men – three of the five accused perpetrators – are horrified at the supposed injustice of the charges against them, because they “defended the home and only thanks to [us] are we all here today”:

https://www.thecanary.co/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/israeli-rapists.mp4

On Israeli Channel 12 last week journalist Guy Peleg, who published the original video of the gang rape, read out horrific details of the injuries the rapists inflicted on their victim, as they are laid out in the indictment against them. A panel member tried to stop him, saying it was “like playing that video again”:

https://www.thecanary.co/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/peleg.mp4

Defendants kicked, stomped… used a taser… stabbed the detainee in the buttocks with a sharp object… caused a tear in the rectal wall… Ordered the detainee to put a club in his mouth.

Peleg has been targeted by Israeli right-wing media and politicians since publishing the video and has received death threats. The incident for which the five soldiers have been charged is just one out of dozens, even hundreds, of such incidents of sexual violence and torture perpetrated against civilian Palestinian abductees.

But Israel is always the victim.

Deranged Zionist US senator Lindsey Graham is, once again, saying the quiet part out loud.

In a speech to the ‘Republican Jewish Coalition’ – a lobby group that claims to represent Jewish people but makes its real agenda clear by attacking those they consider to “possess strong anti-Israel biases” – Graham wasn’t shy about telling his audience, to frequent cheers, that the US is “killing all the right people” and that if anyone wants to object to US support for Israel they’d better argue with God, exulting that “we’ve run out of bombs” and adding that he feels “good about where we’re going as a nation”:

https://www.thecanary.co/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/graham-bombs.mp4

This is far from a one-off for the rancid Graham, who has previously threatened to invade the International Criminal Court for daring to issue an arrest warrant for war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. He’s called for Gaza to be nuked, called for Israel to sink humanitarian boats trying to deliver aid to Gaza, demanded the US bomb Iran just in case it ever posed a danger to Israel and accused the United Nations relief agency, UNRWA, of teaching Palestinians in Gaza to “kill all the Jews”.

A letter signed by anti-Zionist Jews in support of British-Palestinian NHS doctor Rahmeh Aladwan — who is being persecuted by the Starmer regime and Israel lobby — has seen off a coordinated attempt to sabotage the letter by flooding it with fake signatures.

By yesterday, the letter, which demands protection for Dr Aladwan and an end to the campaign to criminalise her and remove her medical licence, had been signed by more than a hundred British Jews — but today a clearly automated flood of emails took the number to more than 31,000, all with similar strings of identifying characters in the email addresses:

The attempt to nobble the letter failed, however. The list’s administrators quickly replaced the fake-swamped page with a new url – and the number of real Jewish signatories supporting its demands has jumped from a 100 to more than 170.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the Israel lobby — rattled by the support of Jewish people for the Muslim woman it and its government poodles are hounding — is behind it; nor does it take much imagination to see where they got the idea, though they could have used a bit of self-awareness.

Israel has spent millions on bot programmes to try to shore up its shredded reputation after two years of genociding innocent Palestinians in Gaza. But then even Israel’s AI bots woke up and started accusing it of genocide, apartheid and being white colonisers.

Organiser Tony Greenstein said:

Earlier today the Zionists mounted an attack on the statement I circulated in support of Dr Aladwan, who is in danger of being struck off the medical register. Some 31K signatures appeared within a few hours!

As you can see, most of them were fraudulent. Even Adolf Hitler got in on the act.

I have set up a new statement as the old one, even when I’d removed the Zionist ones, was no longer operative.

If you haven’t already signed then please do so.

If you are Jewish and would like to add your signature, the new page to do so is here.

On October 7, 2023, the Israeli regime suspended International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visits to all Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli occupation jails, under the pretext of “security concerns”.

ICRC plays an essential humanitarian role for Palestinian detainees

The organisation has a long history of visiting Palestinians detained by the Israeli regime, and of facilitating family visits that are often otherwise impossible to arrange.

Sarah Davies, from the ICRC delegation in Israel and the Occupied Territories, told The Canary:

In the first nine months of 2023, we facilitated permits for almost 50,000 family members and transported those who could conduct family visits to their relatives in Israeli detention facilities. This complex programme involved facilitating the request for permits as well as the transportation of family members. In the last 10 years, the ICRC transported around one million relatives to visit their detained loved ones, at a rhythm of one or two family visits per month.

Katz says ICRC visits could “harm state security”

Israeli occupation Minister of Defense Israel Katz has confirmed that these visits will remain suspended “until further notice”, claiming they “may be exploited to convey messages or information that could harm state security”.

On October 29, he signed an order barring ICRC visits not only to Palestinian political prisoners from the West Bank who are detained by the occupation, but also to those from Gaza whom Israel deems “unlawful combatants”.

‘Unlawful combatants’ lack legal protection, but term not recognised under international law

In the case of the Israeli regime, the label of “unlawful combatant” is being used not only against resistance fighters — who, under international law, have the right to resist their occupier by any means — but also against civilians. Large numbers of Palestinian civilians in Gaza — including doctors such as Hussam Abu Saffiyah, more than 50 journalists, humanitarian first responders, and even children kidnapped by Israel — are being wrongly labelled as “unlawful combatants.”

They are held without formal charge or trial and are not permitted to receive visits from lawyers. These detainees suffer systematic torture and abuse at the hands of the Israeli occupation. Although international law prohibits the detention without trial of residents of an occupied territory except in highly exceptional cases, this policy has been institutionalised through Israeli occupation laws.

According to a September 2025 report from The Guardian, based on an Israeli military database, only about a quarter of Gaza detainees were classified as fighters by intelligence, with the rest being civilians. Nevertheless, the occupation has continued expanding its use of the “unlawful combatant” law — drawing sharp criticism from human rights groups.

Banning ICRC visits is a violation of international law

The ban on ICRC visits violates international obligations — particularly those outlined in the Geneva Conventions — which grant the organisation access to all detainees in armed conflicts.

Davies explains:

Wherever and whoever they may be, detainees need to be treated with humanity and dignity at all times. This is an international legal requirement applicable to all detaining authorities in Israel and the occupied territories.

The decision also eliminates crucial independent oversight of the treatment and conditions of Palestinian detainees — at a time when unprecedented violations are being committed against Palestinians who have been arrested, detained, and forcibly disappeared by the Israeli regime.

According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS), preventing ICRC teams from visiting thousands of Palestinian political prisoners “constitutes an additional cover for the prison system to continue and intensify its crimes — including the slow killing of prisoners, while concealing evidence of abuse.”

No oversight on horrendous abuses of Palestinian prisoners without ICRC visits

Testimonies from those recently released confirm this abuse — as do the bodies of martyred prisoners returned by the Israeli occupation. The occupation refused to identify almost all of these bodies, instead sending them back with no names or ID — only numbers.

Many bore overwhelming evidence of brutality, including torture, hanging, starvation, and organ theft. Others were unrecognisable when received, due to the torture and abuse they endured before death. A large number arrived blindfolded and handcuffed, with visible signs of mutilation — indicating they were likely executed.

Many thousands of Palestinians continue to be physically and psychologically tortured and starved in Israeli occupation prisons and detention camps. A vast number of these detainees are held under “administrative detention” or “unlawful combatant” status — meaning they are charged with no crime and tried by no court.

Israeli occupation’s ‘justice system’ fully responsible for systematic abuse and torture of Palestinian detainees

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) accuses the Supreme Court and the wider judicial system of the Israeli occupation of direct responsibility for the systematic human rights violations against Palestinian detainees. It says they have “actively enabled the colonial regime’s genocidal policies — including those carried out inside prisons — through torture, starvation, denial of medical care, sexual assaults, and degrading detention conditions.”

Sarah Davies told The Canary:

The ICRC stands prepared to resume its regular detention visits at the earliest opportunity to continue, among other things, monitoring the treatment of detainees and the conditions of detention in all relevant facilities. This remains a priority for the ICRC in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. Committed to its mandate and responsibilities, the ICRC will continue stressing to the relevant authorities their obligations for as long as it is necessary.

Katz’s decision to block ICRC visits comes shortly after the Knesset’s preliminary approval of legislation that would allow the execution of Palestinian prisoners.

Authorities at Prague airport detained an Israeli soldier who actively helped the terrorist state commit genocide. Israeli soldier denied entry into the Czech Republic after a 15-hour detention.

Great Job Prague

An Israeli Soldier who fought in Gaza and Lebanon was detained for hours at Prague’s international airport and denied entry to the Czech Republic. pic.twitter.com/yRI6E6vHwG

— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani) October 29, 2025

According to ynet Global, the man travelled to Prague with his wife “after months of reserve duty.” Or, in other words, after months of murdering innocent Palestinians. Hilariously, he also claimed they ‘treated him like a criminal.’ Funny that.

In the end, the couple had to pay for their own return tickets and lost their holiday.

Reports suggest he was denied entry to the Schengen Area after French authorities issued a well-earned criminal alert against him in the Schengen Information System. Authorities put them through 15 hours of questioning before deportation to Israel.

Israeli soldier denied entry: No safe haven for war criminals.

He claimed:

I don’t understand why we’re being deported or what I supposedly did that led to this kind of ‘warning’ against me.

These people are so far removed from reality that they don’t realise that committing genocide might raise the occasional red flag when travelling internationally.

this is how we must respond to all them genocidal cunts who get off on killing innocent people. exclude them, make it known that they are not welcome anywhere. https://t.co/h8x38et9ve

— ف (@jiminilvrs) October 29, 2025

The Schengen zone prevents travel for individuals with certain criminal records, including drug trafficking and murder. While the Schengen criteria don’t explicitly include ‘war crimes’ or ‘genocide’ in black and white. But anyone with a brain can put two and two together.

He also tried to suggest that someone had stolen his identity and used it to commit serious crimes. Again, did murdering babies slip his mind?

Good, I hope other countries follow suit https://t.co/ElpospykYf

— MillieMN001 (@MillieMN001) October 29, 2025

May this be the beginning of a worldwide response. No safe haven for war criminals. https://t.co/GL3AiMVeMJ

— Jugni (@kikigee24) October 29, 2025

Earlier this month, British lawyers said that British courts can now try and jail Brits who served in Israel’s genocide, under the Foreign Enlistment Act. This is thanks to the UK finally recognising the Palestinian state. However, the law cannot be applied retrospectively. This means that those who have served in the IDF over the two years prior to September will effectively get away scot-free.

Declassified UK have previously reported that 80 Brits were serving in the Israeli military on 7 October 2023. This raises questions about a future in which the UK will have baby-murdering ex-IDF soldiers roaming the streets.

One of these days we will be arresting them for their warcrimes and putting them on trial. https://t.co/ulAQ14kONt

— Dianne Woodward (@WoodwarddianneJ) October 29, 2025

It’s sickening that IDF soldiers feel such entitlement for their little autumn holiday, after trapping 2 million Palestinians in Gaza while they’ve besieged it into oblivion

Now, if a certain British prime minister could stop inviting violent Israeli thugs and war criminals into the UK, that would be great.

In a withering address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, has wiped the floor with misogynistic Israeli representatives and called out UN member states to their faces for enabling and participating in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Speaking from Cape Town after delivering the Nelson Mandela Lecture in Johannesburg, Albanese reminded UN delegates of South African apartheid and compared it to Israel’s crimes in Gaza. And, she called out the culture of intimidation that Israel uses to try to intimidate critics into silence.

Albanese persists despite smears from Israel

Albanese is a relentless and formidable advocate for Palestine who in the spring saw off desperate Israeli attempts to oust her from her Special Rapporteur post. And, she has accused UK PM Keir Starmer directly of collaborating in Israel’s genocide whilst remaining undeterred by the Trump regime’s punitive sanctions on her for her criticism of Israel – which prevented her travelling to New York in person to deliver her report. As she connected online with gathered delegates she made it clear:

constitute an assault on the UN itself — its independence, its integrity, its very soul.,

Israel scraping through barrel-bottoms in their rants at the UN is nothing new, but it might have been a new low when Israel’s representative accused Albanese of “witchcraft” – and was promptly rinsed by Albanese’s intelligent and principled response:

If I had the power to make spells I’d use it to stop your crimes once and for all.

https://www.thecanary.co/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/snapins-ai_3753935344337686910.mp4

Small wonder the genociders are so desperate to silence her.

On Tuesday 28 October, Defend Our Juries and Prisoners For Palestine jointly announced plans to launch what they aim to be the:

most widespread mass civil disobedience across the UK in modern British history.

Defend our Juries and Prisoners for Palestine: plans for mass civil disobedience

Defend Our Juries has plans for actions in 18 towns and cities across every nation in the UK. The group will be challenging the ‘terror’ ban on Palestine Action ahead of and during the judicial review (25–27 November). Protesters will hold Lift The Ban demonstrations in Edinburgh, Cardiff, Oxford, Leeds, Aberystwyth, Nottingham, Northampton, Gloucester, and Truro on Tuesday 18 November. Following this, the group will host protests in London (Thursday 20, Saturday 22, Monday 24, Wednesday 26), Belfast (Saturday 22), Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester, Birmingham, Cambridge, Bristol, Sheffield, Exeter and Lancaster (Saturday 29 November).

So far, the state has arrested over 2,000 people under terrorism legislation for taking part in these actions in which people sit silently holding handwritten cardboard signs saying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”. Around 170 of these, police have so far charged with section 13 offences under the Terrorism Act 2000. These offences carry a maximum six month prison sentence.

Time for a ‘significant escalation’

At the Court Of Appeal ruling on 15 October, Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori won two more grounds for her Judicial Review. This was at the same time as the government lost its attempt to block the legal challenge of the ban. Defend Our Juries said this made the Judicial Review “twice as likely to succeed” as she now has four grounds on which to appeal rather than two.

Last week the UN issued its draft report Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime. It detailed the complicity of states including the UK in the destruction of Gaza. Amongst other things, the UK continued to supply arms including components for F-35 stealth bombers, undertook daily surveillance flights over Gaza for Israel, maintained normal trade relations, and enabled Israel to undertake international crimes with impunity.

A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries said:

Today, we’re announcing a significant escalation. This is set to be the most widespread mass civil disobedience across the UK in modern British history, stretching from city centres to small towns across the country, in open defiance of this authoritarian and unjust ban.

These historic mobilisations will honour those already imprisoned for risking everything to disrupt the flow of arms to Israel and stands in unwavering solidarity with them.

As the latest UN report makes devastatingly clear, both Conservative and Labour governments have been shamefully complicit in the horrors unfolding in Gaza. The use of counter-terror legislation to silence and criminalise people acting to save lives and expose the UK Government’s violations of international law must end now. The Filton 24 and Brize Norton 5 must be granted immediate bail and full access to the evidence they need to defend themselves.

Our movement to defy this draconian ban is growing by the thousands and we will not stop until it is overturned.

Different nations, wildly different responses

The action in Belfast Saturday on 22 November will be the first Lift The Ban action in the city. Local campaigners have held regular independently-organised sign-holding actions in Derry, but police have brought no arrests or charges to date in the North of Ireland. Legal experts say that Police Service Northern Ireland need the proscription “like a hole in the head”. They suspect that the home secretary did not consult PSNI on the proscription.

Police Scotland have similarly made no arrests at Lift The Ban actions in Edinburgh. However, they have subsequently arrested and charged a seemingly random ten people from the 85 who took action in September. The Scottish Counter-Terrorism Board CONTEST has concluded that Palestine Action:

has not been close to meeting the statutory definition of terrorism.

Earlier this month, former diplomat Craig Murray filed a legal challenge against the ban in Scotland. It means there is the potential for a constitutional crisis if Scottish and English courts reach different decisions.

In Cardiff, Welsh police took an alarmingly extreme approach back in July. Cops arrested sign-holding sitters originally under section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (maximum penalty of 14 years in prison). They held the protesters in custody while raiding their houses. The same sitters were subsequently charged with lesser section 13 offences (maximum penalty of six months in prison).

Palestine Action prisoners prepare to hunger strike

In tandem, Prisoners for Palestine have announced that prisoners the state is holding in British jails without trial will go ahead with a rolling hunger strike on 2 November. The decision comes after the home secretary failed to respond to their demands. This included immediate bail, access to documents necessary for the right to a fair trial, and the de-proscription of Palestine Action.

The prisoners are part of the Filton 24 and Brize Norton 5 who are alleged to have taken part in actions in the name of Palestine Action designed to save lives by degrading weapons and machinery facilitating Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The Crown Prosecution Service claims there is a “terrorism connection” to the alleged offences. This is despite the fact that the state has brought no charges under the Terrorism Act against them, and the activists carried out their actions before the government proscribed Palestine Action.

Francesca Nadin, spokesperson for Prisoners for Palestine said:

It’s no great surprise that the government has ignored the prisoners’ demands, this is simply a continuation of the corruption and violence enacted by the British state – not only upon the prisoners, but most importantly on the Palestinian people. It seems that they believe that they can act against the wishes of the people, but we are here to tell them otherwise. The prisoners lead the way with their resolve and moral clarity and we must heed their call. We are here today with Defend Our Juries to show the British state that we will not be intimidated into silence, on the contrary, we are fighting for the same cause and will continue to escalate. For justice, for freedom, to stop the genocide in Palestine.

T Hoxa, one of the Filton 24 who ended a 28-day hunger strike on 7 September after winning most of her demands, said:

For me, the hunger strike is about autonomy. Your body is one way you can fight against the system, because in every other way they’ve taken everything from you. They lock you up when they want, give you red warnings just because they’ve got that power. So, for me, hunger strike is a very important and necessary tool, and the notion that this is one area they can’t control gives me strength.

Hunger strike to bring violence of UK carceral system into ‘sharp focus’

Dr Asim Qureshi, research director at CAGE International, who are negotiating partners for the hunger strikers alongside Prisoners for Palestine, said:

This hunger strike will be the first of its kind in at least two decades. It brings into sharp focus the violence of the carceral system in the UK, a violence we often associate with places afar. From Guantánamo to Gaza, the infrastructure of authoritarian terror laws built to imprison, silence, and suppress action for Palestine and voices challenging wars and genocide must be dismantled. Prisoners are the beating heart of our movement for justice. We must honour their sacrifices and stand up to challenge the injustices they face.

The hunger-strikers are members of Prisoners for Palestine, which include the Filton 24 and Brize Norton 5. Some of these prisoners have now spent over a year in custody without trial. With their treatment having deteriorated following the proscription of Palestine Action, they feel they have no option but to go on hunger-strike to fight for their rights.

The prisoners will start their hunger strike on 2 November, Balfour Day, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. It will also mark just two weeks before the start of the first of the three Filton 24 trials. The hunger-strike aims to highlight the conditions of the prisoners’ incarceration, and set out a series of demands to the British government. These demands include the right to a fair trial, release on bail, and the dropping of all terror-related charges.

The Filton 24 are alleged to have been involved in an action on the Research, Development, and Manufacturing Hub of Israel’s biggest weapons maker Elbit Systems, located at Filton, Bristol. During the August 2024 action, a group of activists drove a modified prison van through the facility’s perimeter fence, and on through the shuttered entrance. Six activists then entered the building, and began dismantling production machinery, as well as Elbit-produced quadcopter drones, which Israel has used throughout the Gaza Genocide.

Police arrested the six activists at the site. However later, while in police custody, they re-arrested them under counter-terrorism legislation. This allowed the authorities to extend their detention period. Police later charged them with non-terror offences, and remanded them in custody.

Shocking abuse of terror laws and police powers

Over the following months, in a series of dawn raids, police arrested a further 18 activists, often along with family members, who they later released. The police again used counter-terror laws, and while they never charged them with terrorist offences, the prosecution have alleged a ‘terrorism connection’. All have been denied bail, and been subject to various abuses by the prison authorities. The treatment of the Filton 24 has been widely condemned, not least by the United Nations.

In June of this year, activists entered RAF Brize Norton, and sprayed blood-red paint on 2 Voyager aircraft leased by the RAF. Brize Norton has served as a transport and re-fuelling hub for flights to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, from where daily flights have been dispatched to spy over Gaza. The former home secretary Yvette Cooper cited the Brize Norton action in proscribing Palestine Action as a supposed terrorist group.

However, evidence shows the government had been planning the proscription for some time previously. Five people have been remanded in custody in relation to Brize Norton, with the police following a similar modus operandi to the Filton case.

The state is currently holding 33 prisoners on remand in British prisons for Palestine-related actions.

Israel’s Knesset has advanced legislation that would effectively annex the West Bank, prompting rare criticism from the Trump administration, which says it does not support annexation. We get a report on the state of illegal settlement activity in the Palestinian territory from the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Jan Egeland, who has just returned from the occupied West Bank. “I think the settler movement felt they had a free hand to do whatever they wanted on the West Bank, and it happened in the shadows of the war in Gaza,” he says about the growth in settlements and widespread impunity for settlers. “Every single day, Palestinian houses are demolished. Every single day, their communities are attacked. Every single day, people are beaten up, thousands of olive trees are uprooted. I mean, it’s happening as we speak.”

360 video of Gaza posted 3 days ago

By ABDEL KAREEM HANNA, SAMY MAGDY and SARAH EL DEEB Updated 2:30 PM EDT, September 27, 2025

Al-Quds once had capacity for 120 patients. Now, roughly 20 remain, including two babies in intensive care. About 60 doctors, nurses and patients’ families are sheltering there.

Vaughan is from Seattle and volunteered through the Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association since July. She kept a video diary of her time at al-Quds, occasionally posting on social media.

She shared dozens of videos with The Associated Press, which verified them. Volunteers in Gaza like her have become a vital source of information, as Israel has forbidden foreign media.