By Peter Lazenby
September 1, 2024
THOUSANDS of protesters across Britain again marched for Palestine on Saturday as Israel intensified its war on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
In major towns and cities calls were made to step up the worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel following news that international coffee shop chain Starbucks saw its market share fall by billions of dollars as customers rebel against the company’s involvement with Israel.
Protests also took place in Israel demanding a ceasefire after Hamas said that six Israeli hostages found dead in Gaza had been killed in Israeli bombing and shelling. Israel said the hostages had been murdered by Hamas as its troops approached.
Calling for more action against organisations investing in firms involved in Israel, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said its research has revealed that local government pension scheme funds in Britain collectively invest over £4.4 billion in companies complicit in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.
The PSC said: “Councils must take immediate action to end ties with companies that are complicit in abuses of Palestinian rights, including by divesting pension funds they administer from companies enabling Israel’s genocide. The deferred wages of local government workers must not be used to fund injustice.”
In the north of England, hundreds marched in Manchester and Leeds.
Norma Turner, chairwoman of Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine which unites a dozen Palestine support and campaign groups, told a rally: “What’s happening in the West Bank is a continuation of Israeli genocide. They won’t stop. So we must do more in solidarity.”
Marchers paused outside the offices of insurance firm AXA in acknowledgement of the firm’s withdrawal of investments from companies involved in Israel.
A young Palestinian woman who addressed the rally, but who was not named, said: “We have protested against AXA’s links with the Israeli military machine — and we have won.
“As a Palestinian, I am still in a privileged position compared with people in Gaza and now the West Bank. It is my duty — and yours — to resist, to challenge Israel’s genocide in whatever ways we can.”
An estimated 400 marched in Leeds where one young woman protester told the Morning Star: “My favourite chants are ‘rise, resist, for Gaza raise your fist’ which is always extra powerful with the hand actions.
“Or: ‘We are the people. We won’t be silenced. Stop bombing Gaza, Now Now.’
“We won’t stop shouting about the atrocities Israel are committing, until the genocide and occupation ends, because silence in the face of evil is how evil persists.
“We’ve seen that from history and now unfortunately before our eyes in present time.”
Demands for divestment were made at a rally in front of Lewisham Town Hall organised by Lewisham and Greenwich Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and Lewisham Stop the War Coalition with support from Lewisham Trades Union Council and Lewisham Muslim Voice.
John McGrath, secretary of Lewisham and Greenwich CND, said: “We’re asking Lewisham council to adopt an ethical position, which they are actually required to do under international law, in that governments, institutions and corporations cannot be complicit with genocide.”
Among the speakers at a rally outside St Thomas’s Hospital in London on Friday was actor Juliet Stevenson.
During the protest, which was called by Amnesty International UK and Healthworkers 4 Palestine, 179 people in medical scrubs knelt in a vigil highlighting the plight of Palestinian healthcare workers detained by Israel.
Amnesty International UK’s crisis response campaigner Tom Guha said: “These dedicated health professionals, whose work is needed now more than ever, have been ‘disappeared’ by Israel.
“The UK government must demand that Israel reveals their whereabouts and releases them immediately.”
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer today condemned the “horrific and senseless” killing of six hostages in Gaza.
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