Marching for Palestine!

by New Worker correspondent

Thousands of protesters marched  through central London last weekend to demand that the new Prime Minister take real action to pressure to end its genocide against the Palestinian people. Almost three years into Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, Britain’s incoming Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has been forced to apologise and admit that the government got it wrong. As we have always known – it was the people, the millions who have steadfastly stood with Palestine, who got it right.
Millions of us have taken to the streets, joined campaigns for boycott and divestment, and piled pressure on politicians. We have done so despite attempts to demonise and stigmatise our marches and all those protesting against genocide and for Palestinian rights. We have been standing on the right side of history. We must continue to do so.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, one of the main organisers of the protests that have rocked London over the past two years, says “we march in London with a clear message for Andy Burnham. If he really wants to break with Starmer’s shameful legacy, he must start by imposing wide ranging sanctions against Israel including a full arms embargo, an end to all military cooperation and diplomatic support, and a total ban on all trade that aids or assists Israel’s atrocities and violations of international law. He must also reverse the spiteful use of repressive public order and anti-terror legislation to target those speaking out for Palestinian rights”.
Burnham clearly wants to distance himself from Keir Starmer’s moral bankruptcy, but in this respect, his statement remains totally inadequate. As the Palestinian people continue to confront Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and escalating colonial violence and apartheid across their homeland, we demand meaningful action. Mass pressure by our solidarity movement has forced this apology. It is clear that only ongoing action will deliver real change. 

Never forget Palestine!

by New Worker correspondent

"British complicity in the dispossession and mass murder of Palestinians is not only a story of the past—it is still the reality today" said Ryvka Barnard, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign Deputy Director, on Nakba Day as hundreds of thousands of protesters marched through central London to highlight the ongoing impact of the 1948 partition of Palestine, the first Arab-Israeli war and the expulsion of nearly a million Palestinian Arabs from their homes in what is now Israel. The Stand Up to Racism movement joined the demonstration, combining it with an anti-fascist protest against a nearby “Unite the Kingdom” rally organised by a racist and supporter of the State of Israel who calls himself “Tommy Robinson”. Some 250,000 people joined the Palestine march that takes place every month in London while the Robinson rally was said to have drawn around 40,000 to its rally in Trafalgar Square.

From the river to the sea!

by New Worker correspondent

Hundreds of Palestine Solidarity members from branches across Britain packed into London’s Conway Hall last weekend for their annual general meeting to decide on the direction of our movement for Palestine. We will never stop protesting, lobbying, boycotting & campaigning until Palestine is free.
Meanwhile Scotland other campaigners are demanding that Scotland's regulatory body revoke the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund — highlighting the organisation's role in land dispossession, support for settlement expansion, and the ongoing displacement of Palestinians, and pointing to the precedent set in Canada, where authorities recently revoked JNF's charitable status over concerns about its activities.  Two weeks ago activists from across Scotland marched to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) in Dundee to demand action against the JNF – the oldest fund-raising organisation in the world supporting Israel, dedicated to, among other things, what is described as “land reclamation”.

Boycott Barclays now!

by New Worker correspondent

Palestine solidarity activists were out on the streets of Lewisham in south London last weekend  to demand Barclays stop financing Israel's genocide against Palestinians. Barclays bank provides £8.1 billion to companies supplying Israel with weapons used to kill Palestinians. 
Barclays also has an agreement with Israel to act as a “primary dealer” for its government bonds. This means Barclays helps Israel directly to raise money to fund its crimes against Palestinians.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is calling on all concerned people to boycott all Barclays services. In 2024 5,000 people closed their Barclays accounts as part of our mass account closure days. Barclays has acquired ownership of Tesco Bank. PSC are therefore calling on all Tesco Bank customers to shut their accounts, and join the next mass account closure day.
Palestine Solidarity is asking everyone who holds a Barclays account to pledge to close it on the next mass account closure day, Thursday 19th February 2026, to have the most impact. 

Palestine will be free!

by New Worker correspondent

Over a 100,000 people marched through the heart of London on Saturday to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, calling for an end to Israel’s occupation and for the UK to halt arms sales to Israel. The protest was called by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and its allies to demand the enforcement of the ceasefire agreement and to condemn the ongoing blockade on Gaza. The protest also called for an end to UK arms exports to Israel and highlighted the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where thousands have been affected by military operations. 
In 1977 the UN designated 29th November  as an international occasion to express support for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, foremost among them the right to self-determination, national independence, sovereignty, and the return of refugees to the homes from which they were displaced in 1948.
Ben Jamal, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s director, said that the day was established by the UN to highlight that Palestinians “did not have their right of self-determination realised” and were living under “a system of brutal occupation”. He said the day had come to symbolise “the complete failure of the international community” to act. In 1977 there were “12,000 illegal settlers in East Jerusalem (and) the West Bank,” the figure is now “close to 750,000”.
Jamal said that granting “impunity” to Israel for “occupation and apartheid” had led “inevitably to the genocide we have all been witnessing”. He also criticised the recently passed UN Security Council resolution on Gaza, saying it “doesn’t support the implementation of international law … gives governance of Gaza to the United States and gives the Palestinian people no say in how they are to be governed”. And the Palestinian Mission to the UK in London posted a message of thanks on social media, saying “we would like to thank all the freedom-loving people in Britain for standing with us … Palestine will be free with your unwavering support and dedication”.

War criminals not welcome here!

by New Worker correspondent

Last weekend over 200,000 Palestine solidarity campaigners marched to Downing Street demanding that the Starmer government take action to stop Israel starving Gaza, end all arms sales and defend the right to protest. The leaders of the Palestine coalition then went to Parliament Square to join the witness circle in solidarity with those protesting against the Starmer government’s proscription of Palestine Action. There the police immediately began to arrest people, including a 62-year-old blind wheelchair user, for showing support for the banned group while the crowd chanted “Shame on you” and “Met Police, pick a side, justice or genocide”.  The Met arrested 857 people for showing support for the banned group, Clashes with the police led to a further 33 people being detained. 
And Downing Street was packed with a large crowd again on Tuesday as demonstrators rallied outside the Prime Minister’s residence to condemn and oppose the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog to London. The emergency protest was called by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign which said “we are the people we won't be silent. The Starmer government might welcome the genocide President of Israel Isaac Herzog, but we will never accept anything but justice for Palestine and accountability for the war criminals”. 
Herzog is the head of a state that is currently on trial for genocide and which has already been found guilty of the crime of apartheid at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In January 2024, the ICJ cited statements made by Herzog personally – that sought to dehumanise Palestinians and called for their collective punishment – as plausible evidence of Israel’s genocidal intent towards the Palestinian people. Herzog’s statements include the claims that there ‘are no innocent civilians in Gaza’ and that it is the ‘entire [Palestinian] nation out there that is responsible’ combined with his promise to ‘fight until we break their backbone.’ Sickeningly, he was pictured writing messages on bombs in preparation to be dropped on Gaza. As a party to the Genocide Convention, Britain has a responsibility to prevent and punish genocide including by bringing to justice those responsible for incitement to commit genocide. 

Stop Starving Gaza!

by New Worker correspondent

Last Saturday thousands joined Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) actions at over 50 locations around the country, including eight across London, and laid down pots and pans to demand our politicians take action to end Israel's starvation of Gaza. “We must keep the pressure up,” says the PSC “as we once more lay down pots and pans to represent those starved to death by Israel’s genocidal blockade and demand our politicians take action to end Israel’s starvation of Gaza. We won't stop until our government ends all complicity in Israel's genocidal violence”. 
In south London Vanessa Redgrave, the veteran campaigning actress, joined protesters demonstrating for an hour outside Lambeth town hall in Brixton for an end to the genocide and for Lambeth council to divest its pension fund of enterprises linked to the Zionist entity.  
“Tonight, local people responded powerfully to the national call from PSC to protest the genocide and Israel’s deliberate starvation of Palestinians, a horror we are all witnessing”
said Micki Loebner from the Lambeth and Southwark 4 Palestine campaign. He told the media that “ in Lambeth, we wanted to join the wave of demonstrations happening across the country and also send a clear message to Lambeth Council: stop investing pension funds in Israeli companies complicit in this genocide. They are still refusing to act.The turnout tonight, especially on such short notice, shows that ordinary people are determined to stand up for Palestine. We see the genocide, and we will keep protesting”.

Draw the line on Palestine!

by New Worker correspondent

On Wednesday 4 June thousands of protesters formed a red human chain around Parliament to demand sanctions on Israel and an end to using starvation as a weapon of war. Several MPs joined the “Red Line for Palestine” around the building during Prime Minister's Question Time was underway at the House of Commons. Others listened to Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Independent Alliance who was presenting a bill to call for an official inquiry into the British state’s role in Israel’s genocide. 
Early that day the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, had labelled the recent Israeli offensive as "appalling, counterproductive, and intolerable". But Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) – one of the organisers of the protest, said "you cannot say 'what Israel is doing is unacceptable' while you continue to provide it with weapons. The words themselves are not enough".  The protesters were demanding that  "our government sanction Israel for its crimes against the Palestinian people".

Palestinian lives matter!

picket outside Israel ambassador's London residence

by New Worker correspondent

Local campaigns across Britain are pressuring councils to divest pension funds from companies complicit in Israel’s genocide.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has released updated research revealing that Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) funds, administered by local councils across the United Kingdom, invest over £12 billion in companies enabling Israel’s genocide, military occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian Arabs.
Freedom of information requests have resulted in the most complete picture yet of the investments of 81 out the total of 86 LGPS funds. Hundreds of millions of pounds are invested in arms companies supplying Israel with weapons including BAE Systems, Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin and RTX Corporation.
The research, obtained through Freedom of Information requests, details the investments of 81 LGPS funds in companies which produce weapons and military technology used in Israel’s attacks on Palestinians; provide services or infrastructure that supports Israel’s unlawful military occupation; or conduct activity in Israel’s illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land.
Collectively LGPS funds invest over £450million in BAE Systems, which manufactures components for Israel’s F-15, F-16, and F-35 warplanes used to bomb Gaza. Over £80 million is invested in Caterpillar, which manufactures bulldozers used by Israel to demolish Palestinian homes, schools and hospitals. While over £90 million is invested in the RTX Corporation, formerly Raytheon, which produces 4,000-pound GBU-28 bombs used by the Israeli military.
For the first time, PSC’s research identifies investments in Amazon and Alphabet Inc (Google). This totals £4.7 billion, nearly 40 per cent of the value of all investments listed. Both companies work together to provide cloud computing infrastructure to the Israeli military and government, dubbed Project Nimbus. In addition, the research shows LGPS funds hold over £28 million in Israeli government bonds, therefore lending Israel money to carry out its atrocities.
The new research comes as campaigns calling for the divestment of LGPS funds from companies enabling Israel’s human rights abuses continue to gather momentum. Earlier this month Tower Hamlets Council passed a motion committing to divest its pension fund from arms companies, following a strong local campaign. While Bristol City Council has called for Avon Pension Fund to divest from arms companies, and companies active in Israel’s illegal settlements.
Lewis Backon, the Campaigns Officer at Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said “the scale of LGPS fund investments in companies that are complicit in Israel’s grave abuses of Palestinian rights is shocking. The deferred wages of millions of local government workers are going into companies enabling Israel’s war crimes, without their consent. But workers and residents are making it increasingly clear that they won’t accept their pension funds being used to fund companies complicit in genocide and apartheid. This year will see the LGPS Divest campaign grow as a force for justice for Palestine – divestment from Israel’s crimes is a moral and legal imperative that cannot be ignored”.

Palestinians need your support

by New Worker correspondent

Thousands of workers and students across the country in their workplaces, colleges, and communities, were demanding an immediate ceasefire and an end to Britain’s complicity in Israel’s crimes this week. And the week of action in solidarity with Palestine ended on Friday with an international day of solidarity that was endorsed by the TUC and Unison.
The Palestinians need the solidarity of trade union members more than ever. “We are now over 400 days since Israel launched what the International Court of Justice has ruled to be a plausible case of genocide that has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, displaced over 2 million and destroyed all of Gaza’s civil infrastructure – schools, hospitals and universities,” says Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, explains why 
“It is a genocide that is not diminishing in intensity, with Israel in the past few weeks embarking on the ethnic cleansing of all of the North of Gaza placing everyone still there, according to then UN, at risk of being killed.
“This week Save the Children released its latest report that carried the shocking fact that 130,000 children have been left without access to food and water in the North of Gaza since early October, as a result of Israel sealing the area and refusing access of aid. It also detailed that 40% of those killed in Gaza since October 2023 are children, the majority aged 5-9. 
“So right, now Palestinians need the solidarity of trade union members more than ever. What Palestinians demand of us to show meaningful solidarity is unchanged. It was expressed clearly by Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Palestinian-led BDS movement at PSC’s recent trade union conference”. 
He said simply “what we ask of you is you do us no harm. This means you must campaign to end the complicity of your government which continues to arm Israel and offer it military and political support. Your public bodies – the universities and local government pension schemes which continue to invest in companies which support Israel’s oppression – and those companies and corporations themselves, like Barclays Bank, which invests in and provides financial services to companies arming Israel. The TUC support for the workplace day of action is important. As Israel continues to massacre Palestinians including children we need not just to be demonstrating in the streets but taking into every workplace the demand for action to end all of UK complicity with these crimes".

Let Our Fire Engine Through!

By New Worker correspondent

Members of the Fire Brigades Union joined Palestine Solidarity Campaign supporters for an evening protest at the Israeli Embassy in London on Monday with the demand “Let Our Fire Engine Through!”
A fully-equipped fire appliance together with fire kit, boots, breathing apparatus and fire helmets, was donated by firefighters from the city of Dundee to the Palestinian fire service in Nablus in the West Bank. It was driven from Scotland to Southampton in the summer to sail to Israel but it has been held at the Israeli port of Ashdod since 21st July.
Dundee has been twinned with Nablus since 1980, and medical kit from the city’s Ninewells hospital along with football kits from Dundee’s East Craigie Football Club were also donated. Over 100 Palestinian firefighters have learned firefighting skills in Scotland, and Gaza protests have been held in Dundee every week since October 2023. Retired Dundee firefighter Jim Malone has championed the cause of Palestinian firefighters for decades and has visited the West Bank seven times, and in 2015 an award-winning documentary, Firefighters Under Occupation, was made by south Wales firefighter Ciaran Gibbons with the FBU's support.
Matt Wrack, the FBU general secretary said “firefighters in Palestine are working to save lives in horrifying conditions. As humanitarians, we cannot stand by while lives are being lost. It is appalling that life-saving equipment donated by our members is being held by Israeli customs while Palestinian firefighters are in desperate need of resources.
“The Fire Brigades Union calls on the Israeli government to release the donated fire engine immediately, and for the UK government to take any necessary action to ensure this aid is delivered safely”.

Palestine – we will not be silenced!

By New Worker correspondent

Palestine Solidarity Campaign activists marched once again last Saturday from Camden Town to Barclays Bank in Tottenham Court Road, where the Barclays branch has been forced to close on Saturdays after weeks of protests.
Luca Salice from the Camden Palestine Solidarity Campaign urged the activists to join the national Gaza protest two days after the General Election, saying "It's very important that we tell the new government that we are here, that we are in solidarity with the Palestinians, that we are against genocide, that we are against the slaughter if children, of women, the destruction of schools, hospitals, universities and places of worship."
Sabi Sagal, a British Jew with family in Israel, said "I'm old enough to remember the Nakba in 1948, I was ten years old, and we were lied to. The Zionists put out the false narrative that the Arab armies had invaded Palestine to drive the Jews into the sea. The reality was the opposite – it was the Zionists who drove out three quarters of the Palestinian people into the desert. It was an Israeli professor, Benny Morant, who finally told the truth when he said ‘Yes, we drove the Palestinians out, we had to do so, otherwise we wouldn't have the state of Israel’. He was honest, he was an honest Zionist. What the Israelis are doing now is to complete the ethnic cleansing begun in 1948.
"We often hear the term Apartheid used in relation to Israel, but in fact Israel is much worse than Apartheid South Africa. But it's very important that we're protesting outside Barclays, it was when Barclays Bank was forced to withdraw their investments from South Africa that the Apartheid regime fell in the early 90s. Let's do the same again now, let's force Barclays to withdraw its financial support for Israel, and let's end all the arms that enable Israel to kill and murder Palestinians in their thousands".
Jonathan Fluxman, a health worker from South Africa, pointed out that "even if there are not many of us here today, it's still important that we're here outside Barclays, because all of these people around us can see and hear us."
The Camden protest was one of seven across London and 28 across Britain last Saturday, as far apart as Plymouth and the Orkney Islands. These weekly protests have now been taking place for 38 weeks. Palestine campaigners did not expect, or want, this campaign to be needed after so long. 
Until recently frenzied efforts were being made by government ministers and the media to label these actions as "pro-terrorist", and the police came under intense pressure to close them down.  But in the last few months the political establishment and mass media have tried a new tactic, erecting a 'wall of silence'  on the protest movement in an attempt to suffocate it. But there is no sign of the numbers taking to the streets for an end to the genocide in Gaza going down.
As one of the slogans coined during this incredible protest movement which millions have joined in Britain says: "We are the people – We won't be silenced!"

Free Gaza! Free Palestine!

By New Worker correspondent

Over 200,000 people took to the streets of London on Saturday to support the Palestinian Arabs and demand an end to the carnage in Gaza – a demand echoed  in demos and protests in cities, towns and villages organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other solidarity and anti-war movements throughout the country.
At the rally Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador in London said " I am running out of words, not only to describe the horror we are witnessing every single day. No. I am running out of words to help me understand how world leaders and how the mainstream media cannot see, cannot report, cannot act. 
“I have questions. How do they sleep? 
 “How do they sleep when they see the pictures of emaciated, skeletal children shaking with fear dying of an engineered famine in Gaza? 
 “How can they sleep when they see the child Ahmed al-Najjar, just 18 months old, beheaded in Rafah by a US-made bomb? 
 “I know I can’t sleep. I can’t get Ahmed’s image out of my head! Why are those pictures not on your front pages every day?”

. Stop arms sales to Israel!

by Theo Russell

Last Saturday around 80 people marched from Kentish Town to Mornington Crescent in north London in one of many local protests across Britain calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and for Britain to end arms sales to the extreme Zionist government in Israel led by Benjamin Netanyahu. Passing close to the famous Camden Market, the protest as usual ended near Sir Keir Starmer's constituency Labour Party office.
Unlike the previous week there was no pro-Israel counter-protest, although strangely there was coincidentally a small anti-vaxx protest at Mornington Crescent.
The spirit of those protestors who have stuck out the protests which have now continued come rain or shine for six months (at one point the local Camden protests drew over 600 people) was still as strong and determined as ever, and as usual many passing cars, buses, lorries and van drivers hooted loudly in support.
At the rally in Mornington Crescent Luca Salice, the co-Chair of Camden Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) , said the protest coincided with the 30th  anniversary of the Rwanda genocide but as he pointed out "the Western countries looked the other way and did nothing while that genocide was taking place. This time the Western countries are actually supporting and assisting Israel as it conducts genocide against the people of Gaza". Luca also said that Britain is also using its bases on sovereign British territory in Cyprus to supply arms to Israel and to launch fighter jets to bomb Yemen, as it did previously in Iraq and Syria.
Sabby Sagall, also co-Chair of Camden PSC, said that Palestinian refugees driven out of Israel for many decades should be compared to the Jews who fled Nazi Germany and many other countries it occupied.
For the protestors in local actions across the country it is hard to believe that the living nightmare in Gaza is still taking place after six months, but they are as determined as ever to force the British government to unequivocally condemn the Israeli military's actions and call for an immediate end to the deliberate targeting of civilians and creating an inhuman collective punishment in Gaza, demands which only 13 per cent of people in Britain oppose. Every other major party in Britain apart from the Tories, Labour and the Unionists in the north of Ireland supports those demands, and the Government must be forced to listen.

Cease-fire now!

by New Worker correspondent

Over 250,000 people marched on the Israeli embassy in London on Saturday in support of the Palestinian Arabs and to demand an immediate end to Israeli aggression in Gaza. At a rally near the Zionist embassy former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Palestinian ambassador to the UK Husam Zomlot both called for justice for the Palestinian people. 
Ben Jamal, the Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said  “At each stage of Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza we’ve seen horrors that we never thought possible. The images this week from Israel’s bombardment of Rafah, of children with limbs torn apart, should be seared on the conscience of the world. Despite mounting pressure from world leaders, and in defiance of the international court of justice ruling, the Israeli Government has made clear that it is about to launch an attack on Rafah that will lead to unprecedented levels of carnage.
“The moral imperative is clear. An immediate ceasefire is a simple, absolute necessity. The legal imperative is also clear – the UK must abide by its responsibilities under the Genocide Convention to cease any activities that make it complicit. Our Government and Opposition are guilty of an historic failure of leadership and principle. They have chosen to take the side of those committing genocide over those who are its victims, and over the demands of international law. We, with the majority of people in the UK, will continue to hold them to account on our marches, protests, campaigns and in the voting booths”.

Gaza: Stop the slaughter

by New Worker correspondent

London comrades joined thousands of other Palestinian solidarity campaigners who rallied outside Downing Street in Whitehall on Monday to demand an end to Israeli aggression in Gaza. The emergency protest was called following reports that the Israelis had started to carpet bomb Rafah. Demonstrators called on the Sunak government to end arms sales to the Zionist state and as their numbers swelled the police were forced to close some of the roads near the Prime Minister’s residence.

Stop the Slaughter in Gaza!

Marching through Camden

by New Worker correspondent

The first Saturday of December saw the latest round of pro-Palestine solidarity events calling for a ceasefire, with unions joining the protests for the first time. Local protests were held all around the country and all over London. London comrades joined demonstrators at two of them.  

In North London, protesters marched down to a rally outside Camden Town Hall in Bloomsbury sending a vocal message to the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, the local MP who still refuses to back calls for a ceasefire.

RMT President Alex Gordon addressed the rally, speaking of the need for union representation at these events, and pledged his union’s ongoing support and solidarity while Liz Wheatley, from Camden Unison, spoke of the overwhelming support for a ceasefire among the Camden Council workers that her branch represents, and how no Camden Labour councillors have called for a ceasefire.

Sabby Sagall, of Camden PSC, and Sam Weinstein of IJAN (International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network) both spoke of how their Jewishness informed their support for the Palestinian cause and people, and that to them, being Jewish meant always being on the side of the oppressed and not the oppressor, echoing the words of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising leader Marek Edelman.

There were also speakers representing predominantly Bangladeshi Muslim local Community Groups. Among the points they made were opinion polls in Camden suggest 90% local support for a ceasefire, even higher than the 74 per cent national average, and that our local representatives, at local and national level, do not represent the communities they are supposed to serve.

South of the river supporters of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign along with the South East London People’s Assembly gathered outside Lewisham Library to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as well as to mobilise support for the big rally on the 9th of December and to support the boycott of Puma.

Speakers said that the oppression of Palestinians did not start on the 7th of October but existed long before that. The local Labour MP Ms Janet Daby was notable by her absence  and was denounced by one speaker for not supporting the motion in parliament for an immediate ceasefire.

Lift the siege on Gaza!

By New Worker correspondent

Hundreds of thousands of protesters returned to London on Saturday 26th November to march through the heart of the capital demanding the lifting of the Israeli siege of Gaza.
The national demonstration was called by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and a number of other anti-war movements including Stop the War and CND to demand that the four-day prisoner exchange cease-fire is made permanent, that the cruel siege on the Gaza Strip is completely lifted and the root causes of the crisis in Palestine are addressed.
These huge demonstrations, five in London since the upsurge of fighting began on 7th October, are repeatedly smeared as hate marches by right wing politicians and their media. Nothing could be further from the truth – they are mass peaceful protests attended by all races and religions, including many Jewish people. 
Saturday’s march for Palestine was, yet again, an impressive event with a large, coherent Jewish Bloc participating. The Jewish Bloc was prominent on the march and there a number significant contributions from Jewish speakers on the platform. The Bloc is a coalition of Jewish groups joining together as a collective voice in opposition to Israel’s war on Palestinians, the ensuing genocide in Gaza, and the UK Government’s complicity in war crimes.
The demonstrators march on clear anti-racist foundations believing that the struggles against all forms of racism including anti-semitism, Islamophobia and Israel’s system of apartheid are indivisible. They reject all attempts to conflate anti-semitism with legitimate advocacy for Palestinian rights and criticism of the actions of the Israeli State. 
PSC Director Ben Jamal said “this 4-day truce will allow some desperately needed aid to enter the Gaza Strip. This, however, will not be sufficient to even address the most urgent need. The illegal siege on Gaza must be completely lifted to allow unfettered access for food, water, fuel, and medical supplies.
“A permanent ceasefire must be the starting point to address the underlying causes of the situation, including decades of military occupation and a system of oppression against the Palestinian people that is considered internationally to meet the legal definition of apartheid. The British government must end its complicity in Israel’s crimes, starting by joining the call for the killing of civilians to stop completely.
“We will redouble our efforts to ensure that there is no return to violence. We will continue to march, demonstrate, and organise to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire and justice for the Palestinian people”.

Gaza ceasefire now!

by New Worker correspondent

London comrades joined hundreds of thousands of protesters who marched through the heart of the capital on Saturday 11 November to demand a halt to the savage Israeli onslaught on Gaza. Some comrades took the NCP banner to the start of the demonstration at Marble Arch in Mayfair. Others joined it in Victoria as it proceeded to the American embassy across the Thames at Nine Elms.
The organisers reckon over 800,000 people took part in last weekend’s protest. Others say it was easily over a million-strong. Nobody knows. But what we can say for certain is that the three-mile march through London was clearly the biggest since the Gulf War protests in 2003. 
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the others in the consortium that organised the protest that included the Stop the War movement, CND and the Muslim Association of Britain had agreed the three mile route with the police to avoid any possible clashes with racist gangs who were gathering in Whitehall to “defend” the Cenotaph on Armistice Day.
Reactionary politicians had called for the march to be banned while Home Secretary “Cruella” Braverman stoked the flames of Islamophobia by calling it a “hate march” and accusing the police of “playing favourites” with pro-Palestinian protesters while targeting the far-right. But on the day the only clashes were between the “football lads” and the police around the Cenotaph.
Nine officers were injured trying to stop the racist mob getting to the Cenotaph and many detained on breaches of the peace charges or possession of Class A drugs.
Ms Braverman who thinks she’s the darling of the right of the Tory party clearly sees herself as a future Tory leader – and that’s no doubt why Rishi Sunak sacked her on Monday.
“There is no doubt that the violent fascist and  far right thugs out on the streets in London on Saturday were emboldened by Suella Braverman’s reckless and racist interventions last week,” says Sabby Dhalu, the Co-Convenor of the Stand up to Racism campaign. “That’s why she was sacked. Braverman will forever be remembered as the Home Secretary that built the far right. However her sacking will not solve the problem of “stop the boats” racism – that has built the far right. These groups have been demonstrating consistently since Rishi Sunak has been Prime Minister, for which he is responsible”.

We are all Palestinians!

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks and other London comrades joined the huge crowd at Trafalgar Square on Saturday demanding an immediate end to the Israeli offensive on Gaza. And all over the world millions of other protesters were also taking to the street to stand by the Palestinians defiantly resisting the merciless onslaught of the Zionist aggressors.
Chanting “ceasefire now” and “in our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians” demonstrators held sit-down protests in Oxford Street and Piccadilly Circus before moving on for a rally that overflowed into the many side-streets around Trafalgar Square. Hundreds more took over the concourse of Charing Cross station in the afternoon shutting down the nearby mainline railway station for several hours.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign is now calling for a million-strong march through London on Armistice Day, Saturday 11th November Though the solemn ceremony at the Cenotaph will be held, as usual, on the following Sunday the Tories are still trying to stop the Palestinian demonstration in a drive to stifle the solidarity movement that is sweeping the county.
Rishi Sunak says the solidarity march would be “provocative and disrespectful” and warned that the Cenotaph could be “desecrated”. His Home Secretary, “Cruella” Braverman,  has gone even further  calling the demonstration a “hate march” that poised “an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage”. Both the march organisers and the police have said the protest will avoid Whitehall, where the war memorial is located.
Ben Jamal from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign told the media that “the attempts to frame the planned national demonstration on Saturday, November 11th , part of a cycle of weekly marches calling for a ceasefire, as disrespectful to Remembrance Day commemorations is at best misinformed and at worse an incitement to public disorder. This is a march calling for a ceasefire in order to stop the current slaughter in Gaza. To highlight this democratic action taking place on November 11th , well away from Whitehall, as disrespectful is dangerous and disingenuous politicking that defames many hundreds of thousands of people who want the current violence to stop.”
The Labour mayor of London Sadiq Khan says the Government is playing politics over the “terrible tragedy” unfolding in Gaza, and the solidarity campaigns say they have no plans to disrupt Remembrance weekend events. Now Gary Lineker has joined in the fray. The outspoken sports commentator and former England footballer weighed into the row to defending the planned protests saying “marching and calling for a ceasefire and peace so that more innocent children don’t get killed is not really the definition of a hate march”.