My weekly column published in the Plymouth Herald on 5th December 2023. I am in tears and choked by the horror of the genocide in Gaza, the Second Nakba (Catastrophe) in which twice the numbers of Palestinians have now been displaced compared with the first Nakba in 1948, and 5 times the number of civilians killed, including at least 6,000 children. This will never be forgotten, but, as the bombing and destruction starts again, with 1.9 million people suffering without food, water or shelter, I can only voice my outrage and call everyone onto the streets.

It’s no good. We have to talk about Gaza.

There can be no greater expression of absolute power than in having fighter planes, drones, ships, tanks and super-armed militia pummel civilian neighbourhoods and then stop, let in tiny amounts of water and food, and then begin the killing all over again.

You may say “It’s War”. You may point to an enemy hidden amongst the civilians. You may choose sides. 

But, by any reckoning, 14,000 casualties in 7 weeks, set against 1500 (max) Israelis, is asymmetrical, in military terms, 10:1.

And for every person killed in Gaza there are at least 3 others injured with life-changing, debilitating wounds and without any decent hospital treatment as the fuel and medical supplies have run out. Now amounting to 38,000 injured – more than the entire population of Barnstaple.

The Israeli government this week declared that the entire region of Gaza is now subject to their military occupation and assault. This will not stop, they say, until all their goals are achieved. Their published goals include the extermination of the Hamas governance and infrastructure, but they do not disclose their entire plan. What happens afterwards?

There remains more than 2 million Gazan Palestinians – human beings by the way, now corralled into Southern Gaza, an area measuring 12 miles by 7 miles – smaller than our PL postcode area which crams-in fewer than 320,000. These people, to repeat, these 2 million people, include more than 1 million offered no more than crowded tents in winter weather conditions. They are now being continuously strafed by fighter planes, bombed, with reports of incendiary weapons that continue to burn on contact with skin, and targeted if they dare to move.

There are over 1,000 bomb craters visible from space in Gaza, the result of over 8,000 bombs drops on 12,000 targets in an area of just over six square miles – the size of Plymouth’s Devonport.  

We should remind ourselves that more than 5,000 of the dead are children below the age of 13, and 45% of those killed are women according to the United Nations medical officials there on the ground. The world has watched, the West supporting the death and destruction, the Global South (the majority of the world’s governments) condemning the deaths yet all nations united in doing nothing to end it. 

This so-called “war” is to continue at least over our Christmas period. In fact, it is intensifying. The United States have suggested that Israel should lower the proportion of civilian deaths during their “exercises”, but last Saturday, in one single day, 700 were killed. 

Most crucially for us, the UK has ramped-up its military support to Israel and activity in the occupation of Gaza. The Royal Air Force is conducting the drone surveillance flights using Shadow R1 reconnaissance aircraft over Gaza to track and target movements on the ground, whilst Commandos are deployed and Vanguard-class nuclear submarine supports two US aircraft carrier convoys in the southern Mediterranean Sea.

Such a huge use of military might against the impoverished and besieged people of Palestine is not only questionable, it is unconscionable. 

The British trade union movement called early-on for a ceasefire, mindful of the inequality in the level of military power and consequential one-sided civilian casualties. We cautiously welcomed the “lull” of last week, giving hope that it could be made permanent. The sheer horror of the continuation of the mass killing is made all more unjust by the sheer proven fact that it can be stopped at will. 

Specifically, the UK must stop arming Israel. Now! We have nothing to do but shout-out our opposition. The trade unions’ Day of Action on Thursday 7th December will see many workplaces and students stage walkouts for an immediate cessation to the killing.

The demand for a ceasefire is the only humane approach. The fact that our MPs and local politicians refuse to call for an end to the mass killing of children and civilians is the most seering indictment of their complicity, their support for UK military involvement tantamount to support for genocide, a war crime. 

For our part, we shall continue to protest and expose the hypocrisy and warmongering of our elected leaders. We can only ask that everyone of conscience and with any moral compass join us.