Derry councillor calls for 'global grassroots mobilisations' to end siege on Gaza

People Before Profit Councillor Shaun Harkin said has called for mass civil disobedience to put pressure on western governments to stop backing Israel in its war on Gaza.

He was speaking as Israel continues its war on Gaza which has taken 2,670 Palestinian lives so far in air raids. A quarter of those deaths are children.

The number of Israelis killed in Hamas’s attacks stands at 1,400, including 286 soldiers.

The Hamas operation is being used cynically by western leaders according to Cllr Harkin.

“Hamas' attacks are being used to justify Israeli devastation of Gaza and hide the complicity of Western powers, rather than understood as the consequences of a brutal occupation and apartheid regime,” he said.

“The only way to ensure peace is to end the occupation of Palestine.

“The US, Britain and EU have spent billions supporting Ukraine's resistance to Putin's vicious invasion and occupation but Biden and Sunak ignore, justify and support Israel's occupation of Palestine. This is total hypocrisy.”

He said mass mobilisation can put pressure on these leaders and bring an end to the ‘genocidal siege’.

"Global grassroots mobilisations on an unprecedented scale comprising mass protests, occupations and general strikes can stop the genocidal siege on Gaza and barbaric Israeli war crimes.

“If ever there was a time for civil society and unions to mobilise mass civil disobedience, the time is now.

“The only way we can stop this slaughter backed, funded and condoned by the most powerful governments in the world, US President Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak, and the EU, is through mass action.”

The Secretary General of the United Nations has warned that the Middle East is on the ‘verge of the abyss’.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians sheltering in U.N. facilities are on less than one litre of water per day.

Hospitals warn they are on the verge of collapse, with emergency generators that power machines like ventilators and incubators down to about one day of fuel and supplies of medicine almost exhausted.

Israel has ordered more than one million Palestinians to leave Gaza City and the surrounding area ahead of a ground invasion. Hamas has urged people to stay in their homes.

“The newly elected Israeli government has encouraged pogroms of Palestinian villages. It has backed ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem. It has supercharged illegal settlements in occupied Palestine and given settlers freedom to kill Palestinians. Gaza has been suffocated for nearly two decades by an Israeli blockade.

“About this violence, there has been no condemnation from Biden and the rest. Instead the US, British and EU governments continue to fully back apartheid.

“Those claiming the actions of Hamas have pushed back the potential for peace and a Palestinian state are lying. Israel was never serious about allowing a Palestinian state and 700,000 illegal settlers in what would be a Palestinian state is the proof.

“Biden was lauded in Ireland earlier this year for peace building. The bullets and bombs killing Palestinians are paid for by his US government. The hypocrisy is rank and shame on all those who refused to challenge Biden on his support for occupation and apartheid.”

Time magazine has reported the Biden Administration and leading members of US Congress are crafting an American aid package of roughly $2 billion in supplementary funding to Israel.

The US has already deployed two aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean ‘to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war’.

Meanwhile, UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman has told senior police officers waving a Palestinian flag or singing pro-Palestine chants in the UK may be a criminal offence.

She said chants such as: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ could be ‘understood as an expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world’’

She added that the ‘waving of a Palestinian flag, may not be legitimate such as when intended to glorify acts of terrorism.’

Cllr Harkin said the Tory government cannot be allowed to criminalise pro-Palestine activism.

“The Palestine solidarity movement will not be criminalised by the Tories,” he said.

“We demand an end to Israel's siege on Gaza and an end to the apartheid regime. That is how we can end the violence.

“A secular democratic state for Arabs, Jews, Christians and all who live there is the pathway to peace."