War Crimes
‘People Die Because Aid is Delayed’: How Indifference is Killing Ukrainians
On a recent trip home to Poland to rest and fundraise, 29-year-old Kuba Stasiak could not shake a disturbing perception.
“People have become indifferent. They have gotten used to the war and now it’s really hard to move them from their apathy,” he explained from an apartment in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk.
After two years of full-scale war, invading Russian forces remain along a 600-mile-long front that cuts across the south and east of Ukraine, occupying 18% of the country. Up and down this line remain pockets of civilians living in rural villages and the bombed-out towns that outline the war.
Usually elderly and without other resources, these communities rely on the humanitarian aid delivered by volunteer formations and small NGOs. If fighting threatens to overtake their homes, volunteers evacuate the willing and organize safe places to stay, often at great personal risk.
Though the need for this work remains, the donations that support it have begun to slow down dramatically. While in Poland, past donors whom Stasiak approached to help repair a vehicle in Ukraine were suddenly no longer interested in providing more funds.
“Even the people I was expecting to be more willing to participate, businessmen for whom two or three thousand euros is nothing collectively, were apathetic,” he lamented. “Most people can’t even recognize the names of Bakhmut or Avdiivka, and now the volunteer community is really struggling.”
A journalist by trade, Stasiak has worked for the last two years as a humanitarian volunteer along Ukraine’s frontlines. In collaboration with Ukrainian and international volunteers — in Sievierodonetsk, Soledar, Bakhmut and beyond — he has helped deliver aid and evacuate around 400 civilians from some of the most dangerous areas of the front.
Kuba Stasiak walks through a damaged home while searching for a resident in Mykolaivka, Donetsk Oblast in July 2023. Photo: Kris Parker
Right Wing Objections
Donor fatigue is growing at a time when the continuation of aid is increasingly challenged by the political right in the governments of the United States and European Union, the two largest sources of assistance.
As Russian forces continue to push, the delays in aid are undermining Ukraine’s ability to defeat determined assaults and daily attacks on civilian infrastructure. Each Russian advance widens the areas destroyed by fighting and multiplies civilians in need of humanitarian assistance. As the latest package of US aid remains stalled in Congress, small groups of self-organized volunteers and supporters abroad are continuing their work as circumstances grow increasingly dire.
“I call Ukraine a DIY country,” explains 40-year-old volunteer Kirill Marlinski. “Because if you don't do it, no one else is going to. So everyone's gotta be a volunteer, pitch in, and do something.”
Despite initial Russian expectations of limited resistance and even support from sections of Ukrainian society, the invasion was overwhelmingly met with determined military resistance and the flowering of volunteer initiatives and international aid networks organized to support Ukraine’s civilian and military needs.
Normally an artist based in Kyiv, Marlinski is one of the countless Ukrainian and international volunteers who mobilized in response to the 2022 Russian invasion, spending the last two years delivering supplies to frontline villages and military units around Donetsk oblast.
Stasiak and a French volunteer named Lucas wait to meet someone seeking an evacuation in Mykolaivka, Donetsk oblast in July 2023. Photo: Kris Parker
Like Stasiak, Marlinski has worked with numerous informal groupings and non-profits to get aid in and people out. But as the war has dragged on, he also noticed a decline in volunteer activity along the front.
“A lot of volunteers have just stopped, for the simple reason that if you don’t have people dropping at least a thousand dollars in your account, you will not be able to keep going,” he said. “A ridiculous amount of money gets burned up just maintaining the van; fueling it and repairing it.”
The roads of eastern Ukraine can vary widely in quality and vehicle or tire repair is a near-constant expense for many volunteers. While individuals like Stasiak, who raise money through social media and crowdfunding, are finding it difficult to keep people engaged, the problem has been widespread.
“At the beginning, we had donors providing in-kind donations of medical supplies, but that definitely dwindled in the past year,” explained 36-year-old Natasha Rudenko, a photographer and co-founder of the group Post Angeles. “The past year has been really, really hard for getting in-kind donations, or any donations, for that matter.”
The California-based non-profit has worked extensively with Marlinski, and since forming in response to the 2022 invasion, has shipped over 183,000 pounds of aid to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s defence is reliant on the economic and military assistance provided by the United States, European Union (EU), and other allied countries. Though 47 states have provided aid, the bulk has come from the United States and the EU. Since February of 2022, roughly $75 billion of assistance has been committed by the US, and $144 billion by EU institutions and member states, though only half of EU funds have been allocated.
Front Line Dangers
Commitments for Ukrainian aid began to drop towards the end of summer last year, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive approached its culmination. Launched in June, the counteroffensive was unable to overcome Russian lines reinforced in the months Ukraine trained and awaited delivery of advanced tanks and other weapons.
In Zaporizhzhia oblast, Ukrainian forces faced minefields up to 500 meters deep while attacked with artillery and helicopters. Losses were high and success was limited. The situation was soon characterized as a stalemate by General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top military commander who was replaced in February of this year. In October the Kiel Institute reported an 87% drop in committed aid compared to 2022 from August to October.
Additionally, the number of Russian soldiers in Ukraine has increased from an estimated 190,000 to roughly 450,000, and the Ukrainian government is now debating how to mobilize 500,000 new recruits to replace its exhausted forces. With a much smaller population, Ukraine has begun to struggle to find new recruits, and the average age of a soldier is now above 40. Ukraine has yet to conscript anyone below the age of 27, though a proposed law could lower that age to 25.
A pledge made by the EU in March of 2023 to provide Ukraine with one million artillery shells within a year has failed to meet that goal, and the EU recently acknowledged only 52% of the one million shells will be delivered by March of 2024. Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy recently stated only 30% of the critical ammunition has been delivered. Throughout the war, Ukraine has struggled to match the Russian rate of artillery fire, and Russia is estimated to be currently firing 3X the number of shells as Ukraine. The disparity in firepower has been central to Russian battlefield successes and poses acute threats to volunteers as well.
“Anytime you drive up somewhere 2, 3, 4 kilometres directly from the Russians, you run a risk of getting blown up,” explained Marlinski. “It’s a very small risk compared to soldiers, but you have to deal with it, that's it. You have to understand that there is a possibility that you'll get killed.”
Outnumbered 7 to 1
Multiple volunteers have been killed attempting evacuations.
In January of 2023, two British volunteers, Chris Parry and Andrew Bagshaw, were killed in Soledar. A few weeks later, Pete Reed, an American volunteer and medic, was killed in Bakhmut. In September, two members of the NGO Road to Relief, Anthony “Tonko” Ihnat and director Emma Igual, died after a Russian missile targeted their vehicle near Chasiv Yar.
A few days later, two Ukrainian volunteers named Serghiy Shalyhin and Vadym Zabara were killed while evacuating two civilians from a village near Kupyansk after a Russian missile hit their car, killing all four. On February 1 of this year, two more French volunteers were killed near Kherson.
“Nowadays, we are afraid of the FPV drones, kamikaze drones, because they are fucking everywhere,” explained Stasiak. The puppy of a recently deceased friend who served as a medic, barked in the background. Days later a missile landed 50 meters from his building, destroying all windows, while killing one neighbour and injuring six.
“For a fact, the Russians have learned some lessons and that's why it is so difficult, especially now, to move through these areas that are heavily shelled, because nowadays you're not afraid of the artillery, but more of the drones; they’re more accurate and sneaky,” he said.
On 17 February, Ukraine’s military announced the withdrawal from Avdiivka, a fortified frontline town for nearly ten years. The retreat came after five months of Russian assaults that killed an estimated 16,000 Russian soldiers and an undisclosed number of Ukrainians.
Outnumbered by a ratio of 7 to 1, amid a critical shortage of artillery ammunition, Ukrainians withdrew under fire to escape a complete encirclement. During the chaos, wounded were left behind, some of which appear to have been executed by Russian soldiers.
"It's not fucking Hollywood." Kirill Marlinski, centre, speaks with residents of a village near Siversk, Donetsk oblast in July 2023. Russian positions were approximately four kilometres away. Photo: Kris Parker
“People need to understand that it isn't over. Even when the daily killings have become so routine that it doesn't tickle their nerves anymore, it's real people that are dying daily,” explained Marlinski. “That's the truth. It's not a movie. It's not fucking Hollywood.”
'An Unending Source of Rage'
The fall of Avdiivka occurred amidst the backdrop of growing political turmoil among Ukraine’s two largest sources of military and economic aid, the United States and the European Union.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a rightwing reactionary who has opposed sanctioning Russia and arming Ukraine, blocked an EU vote on a $54 billion aid package in December and continued to threaten a veto until EU pushback forced him to drop his opposition on February 1, 2024. In the United States, far-right members of Congress, led by Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, have blocked an aid package worth $61 billion and continue to do so, despite vocal criticism.
“This has been a pretty unending source of rage for me,” explained Doug Klain, a policy analyst and non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council who works with Razom, a Ukrainian NGO based in the United States and Ukraine, leading their advocacy work in Washington D.C.
Razom formed in the wake of the 2013-14 Maidan Revolution and has raised over $100 million worth of aid since the full-scale invasion, most of which was donated in 2022. The NGO distributes the funds across a network of over 150 vetted organizations that work on the ground in Ukraine.
“We know the consequences of delaying aid to Ukraine. It means that soldiers on the front lines are running out of ammo and they're having to ration ammo, air defenses that were working really magnificently with close to 90 per cent effectiveness, dropping down to around 50 per cent effectiveness,” he said.
“People die because this aid is delayed.”
As debates in D.C. rage over the future of Ukraine, Stasiak, Marlinski, and scores of other volunteers in Ukraine and internationally, press on. The recent Russian advances in Donetsk oblast have increased the requests for evacuation that Stasiak is now coordinating with a small group of experienced volunteers, occasionally overlapping with Marlinski, who is under no illusions of what’s at stake.
“Ukraine has to be built, now rebuilt, with the ideals of doing something for the good of the people, and it’s very important that volunteers continue to work for the country because if we do not succeed this time, it is game over.”
Tweet quoting Webbe on Gaza goes viral
Tens of thousands of shares on post quoting one of UK’s most consistent MPs on Israel’s Gaza genocide
A tweet quoting Leicester East MP Claudia Webbe’s pithy analysis of Gaza has gone viral after it was shared by UK-based, pro-Gaza investigative journalist Sulaiman Ahmed.
Webbe tweeted on 7 Feb:
Israel does not want peace. They want Gaza.
They want to slaughter Palestinians, drive them into the Sinai Egyptian desert and eradicate Palestine.
Yet, our political leaders still refuse to call for an immediate ceasefire.— Claudia Webbe MP (@ClaudiaWebbe) February 7, 2024
Ahmed’s post a couple of weeks later quoting her first sentence was shared thirty-six thousand times and ‘liked’ eighty-two thousand times:
Claudia Webbe is one of the UK’s most consistently solid and outspoken MPs in solidarity with Palestinians and against Israel’s war crimes – at a time when most MPs are either silent or actively endorsing the war criminals – and is routinely foully abused by racists and supporters of genocide for it. She sits as an independent MP and shames the leadership of both main political parties, both of whom are eagerly complicit in Israel’s genocide, refuse to condemn the Israeli regime’s contempt for humanity international law and have avidly propagated discredited Israeli atrocity propaganda used to justify Israel’s slaughter.
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Video: Merseyside Metro Mayor Rotheram refuses to say Israel is committing genocide
Rotheram says he’s come to ‘speak to the community’ – but apparently not to the member of the community asking him to give a simple yes or no answer
Merseyside ‘metro mayor’ Steve Rotheram has been confronted by a local woman who asked for a yes or no answer whether Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians is genocide.
Rotheram squirmed, he obfuscated – but he wouldn’t even give a multi-worded answer, let alone a yes or no one. Nor would he ask the local woman whether she thought it’s genocide, so she can show how simple it is to say.
Instead, he wittered about ‘part of the problem’ and wanting to ‘speak to the community’ while having ‘a private conversation’ (which is it, Steve?):
Video used by courtesy of The Art of Resistance
Keir Starmer’s corrupting influence on the Labour party is seen all too clearly in the actions of many local ‘Labour’ politicians – and Starmer’s war on anyone within the party who dares speak out against the actions of Israel has many party representatives too terrified to do so, in spite of the overwhelming moral need for solidarity with Palestinians and condemnation of Israel’s genocide – yes, genocide. Sadly, it seems like Mayor Rotheram is one of them, despite the massive solidarity among the people of Merseyside with the oppressed and murdered in Gaza and the West Bank.
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BBC CEO signs letter demanding Israel stop murdering journalists in Gaza
36 top mainstream media journalists demand protection for journalists and accountability for their murderers
The CEO of the BBC is among thirty-six leading ‘MSM’ journalists demanding protection for journalists in Gaza and accountability for those who
The belated call comes after five months of Israel’s war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including the deliberate targeting of journalists, which have continued despite the International Court of Justice’s orders to Israel to prevent their murder. It also comes as more than fifty journalists have signed a demand for access to Gaza for foreign journalists.
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150 British Jews tell Met top cop: you’re racist assuming we all support Israel
Letter from anti-racist Jews denounces Establishment’s treatment of anti-genocide marches as antisemitic
One hundred and fifty British Jews have written to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley denouncing the police (and government) treatment of marches against Israel’s genocide in Gaza as if they are antisemitic. The letter reads:
We Reject Your Insinuation That The Marches Against Genocide in Gaza Represent a Threat to Jews or the Jewish Community and Suggest that It Is Not the Business of the Police to Intervene in Ongoing Political Debates
We the undersigned, being Jewish, wish to support and join a complaint against the Metropolitan Police, for their racist and anti-Semitic assumption that all Britain’s Jews support Israel’s genocidal attacks on Gaza.
We further believe that the decision of the Metropolitan, Police to delay the starting time of the March Against Genocide in Gaza on 17 Feb. 24 from 12.00 to 1.30 pm ‘to accommodate an event at a synagogue along the route’ is lslamophobic, based as it is on the assumption that the large numbers of Muslims taking part pose a threat to Jews worshipping in congregations nearby.
Your decision to delay the start of the march rested u~on the assumption that there is something inherently anti-Semitic about supporting the Palestinians and that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism.
The Met’s decision ignores the fact that many thousands of British Jews have already taken part in such marches without feeling threatened in any way. Indeed the march has started from Marble Arch on at least two previous occasions recently without any anti-Semitic incidents.
We are tired of the Police’s racist and anti-Semitic assumption that to be Jewish is to support Zionism and Israel’s racist and genocidal treatment of the Palestinians. There are many thousands of Jews who are active in the Palestine solidarity movement and we resent your assumptions to the contrary.
The letter is signed by:
The letter’s publication comes amid a flurry of racist and Islamophobic comments by government and opposition politicians, with the help of their media allies, aimed at smearing those who object to mass murder as racist – and the arrest of three left-wing protesters in Newham on the nonsensical basis that booing and hissing a supporter of Israel is antisemitic.
The Establishment is determined to suppress free speech against Israel and its war crimes, and to ignore the blatant racism involved in the assumptions it uses to try to justify those attacks. Anti-racist Jews in the UK and the US know better.
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Even BBC admits Israel lied about slaughter of starving Palestinians gathered for aid
Broadcaster’s ‘Verify’ analysis concludes the obvious
Even the BBC – usually the epitome of ‘both-sidesing’ and the minimisation of Palestinian deaths and suffering – has had to conclude that Israel lied when it claimed that it did not slaughter well over a hundred desperate Palestinians and wound as many as a thousand more who were gathered in a street waiting for an aid delivery.
BBC Verify says it “examined social media videos, satellite imagery and IDF drone footage to piece together what we know… about what happened” – and it concluded:
We have examined exclusive Al Jazeera video filmed close to that second location at the rear of the convoy, about half a kilometre south of the roundabout.
Volleys of gunfire can be heard and people are seen scrambling over lorries and ducking behind the vehicles. Red tracer rounds can be seen in the sky.
Mahmoud Awadeyah said the Israeli vehicles had started firing at people when the aid arrived.
“Israelis purposefully fired at the men… they were trying to get near the trucks that had the flour,” he said. “They were fired at directly and prevented people to come near those killed.”
…There have been reports of casualties being taken to several hospitals.
Dr Mohamed Salha, interim hospital manager at al-Awda hospital, where many of the dead and injured were taken, told the BBC: “Al-Awda hospital received around 176 injured people…142 of these cases are bullet injuries and the rest are from the stampede and broken limbs in the upper and lower body parts.
Israel has claimed that a ‘mob’ – otherwise known as desperate civilians starving because of Israel’s blockade of food, water, fuel and medical supplies – stampeded and attacked the aid convoy, but Israel’s own drone footage shows that this did not happen and any ‘stampede’ was caused by the Israeli gun and tank fire, despite the IDF editing out at least three sections of the video that can be taken to show the Israeli troops’ attacks.
A still from the IDF’s drone footage, which shows people gathered but not attacking or stampeding until troops started firing
Israel also contradicted itself, with various spokespeople saying the Israeli soldiers did not fire at all, that they fired ‘warning shots’ and that they ‘only’ shot at the legs of the crowd.
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Video: pensioner among 3 peaceful anti-genocide protesters arrested in Hastings
State repression of civic rights and protection of weapons manufacturers continues to escalate
A pensioner and two other protestors were arrested by police on Thursday 29 February during a peaceful demonstration outside the General Dynamics arms factory in Hastings, East Sussex. The local people were among a broad coalition of community groups that came together to protest against Britain’s role in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The three were arrested and taken to Hastings police station where they were held for nearly fourteen hours before being charged with aggravated trespass and then released on bail. They will appear before magistrates on April 3.
Laurie Holden, 71, a retired train driver from Burwash, was one of those arrested at the demonstration. He said:
It is outrageous that the police are treating us as criminals. We are not the criminals here – we are highlighting the criminal complicity of our government and arms companies in continuing to supply arms to Israel which is in the dock for genocide in Gaza. We will always stand on the side of the people of Palestine.
The Hastings & District Palestine Solidarity Campaign [HDPSC] united with representatives of Jewish groups, trade union bodies, Quakers, climate justice groups, parent groups and political parties to draw attention to the part Hastings is playing in arming Israel.
HDPSC Chair Katy Colley said:
Our brave and principled friends have shown enormous courage in the face of disproportionate and heavy-handed policing of a peaceful, community-led protest.
In January, the International Court of Justice put Israel on trial for genocide in Gaza but since then the slaughter and starvation have worsened. Over 30,000 are dead and thousands more will die if this continues. Yesterday Israeli troops gunned down starving civilians in the north of Gaza as they waited for food – over 100 were killed and 700 injured in the ‘the Flour Massacre’. This latest horror underscores the urgency of stopping all arms sales to Israel. UN experts have warned that any arms transfers to Israel will breach international law and ordered all countries to stop all arms sales immediately.
Our government has refused to halt export licenses to Israel so it is our duty as citizens to stand up for peace, international law and human rights.
We will not stand by as the UK continues to arm this genocide of the Palestinian people. It must end now.’
The protest started at 7am at the Sidney Little Road factory, one of the two General Dynamics sites in Hastings, timed to coincide with workers as they arrived for work. Demonstrators held placards, sung songs for ‘Ceaefire Now’ and handed out leaflets which informed workers of their right to refuse to take part in handling components used in breach of international law.
Israel’s brutal campaign in Gaza has run for five months so far, killing almost 40,000 people and wounding and maiming double that number. The UN is now warning that a quarter of the population is at risk of death from famine and the World Health Organisation has said that more than a million are starving. Protests have been mounted outside arms factories all over the country, including in Kent, Leicester, Bristol, Bournemouth, Glasgow, Cambridge, Brighton, London, Lancashire, Belfast and Monmouthshire, to demand an end to UK’s ongoing complicity and enabling of genocide. This is HDPSC’s fourth protest at General Dynamics’ sites in Hastings since the campaign began.
According to the organisers, almost all of the ‘MK80’ bombs being dropped on Gaza are made by General Dynamics, which is the 5th biggest arms company in the world. The Hastings facilities provide avionic systems for fighter planes and tactical communications equipment for ground vehicles.
At the demo, Leah Levane of Jewish Voice for Labour said that Israel could no longer ‘act with impunity’.
It is shocking that the UK government is granting arms licences to Israel,’ she said. ‘This makes the UK partners in the occupation and the genocide in Gaza. As a Jewish organisation, we are one of several Jewish groups in the UK and the many more across the world who are protesting loud and clear – NOT IN OUR NAME.
Jen Rouse, representing Parents for Future Hastings & St Leonards, said:
We’re here today because as parents we cannot stand by and watch as our government supports a genocide of children.
The thought of our own kids having to live through even a fraction of the terror and trauma that Israel inflicts on Gazan children every day is unbearable. So the only right thing for all UK parents to do is to be here today, demanding an immediate end to the bloodshed. We will never give up until we see a free Palestine.
Simon Hester, Chair of Hastings & District Trades Union Council, added:
Hastings & District Trades Union Council supports the calls for end to all arms sales to Israel and for an immediate ceasefire to end the genocide in Gaza.
We demand that General Dynamics UK stop supplying equipment to the Israeli army or to get out of Hastings. We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Olivia Cavanagh of Hastings Community of Sanctuary and Hastings Supports Refugees said:
We continue to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the West Bank.
We support an embargo on arms sales from the UK to Israel and stand with the Hastings community to call on the local General Dynamics factories to stop supplying arms to Israel and to act to end the unprecedented killing of Palestinian civilians.’
Yunis Smith from Hastings Green Party said:
Years from now the children of the world will ask what did you do to stop this calamity? I for one hope I will have a good enough answer!
And Chris Goodchild of Hastings Quakers said:
The poor tell us who we are, the prophets who we can be. Yet we kill the poor and kill the prophets. We are all Palestinian and civil disobedience is divine obedience. Stop arming Genocide.
The arrest form part of an escalating campaign of repression and demonisation of peaceful protesters demonstrating against genocide. PM Rishi Sunak, who like ‘opposition’ leader Keir Starmer has constantly backed Israel’s murderous actions, has today smeared demonstrators as divisive and hateful and has threatened to deport those who fall foul of what he considers the limits of acceptable protest.
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Starmer challenger calls for new left mass movement outside Labour Party
Former ANC MP and arms trade campaigner will address activists from around UK tomorrow at Collective launch – and poses real threat to friend-of-genocide ‘Labour’ leader
Andrew Feinstein, former ANC MP under Nelson Mandela and leading critic of the global arms trade, will use a speech this weekend to endorse a new political alliance billed as the foundation of the first organised mass movement of the left outside of the Labour Party.
Feinstein’s speech will be the centrepiece of a conference called by dozens of former Labour councillors and other independent candidates. The event will take place in ‘Labour’ leader Keir Starmer’s home constituency of Holborn and St Pancras in London.
Feinstein, who has lived in the constituency for more than two decades since moving to the UK, has already signalled his willingness to stand against Starmer as an independent candidate and has been selected as candidate by the OCISA anti-Starmer group, attracting a groundswell of support both locally and nationally.
Local campaigners say there is real vulnerability in Starmer’s majority, established under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the party, especially given the controversies embroiling Labour over the war in Gaza. Starmer looks even more vulnerable after yesterday’s landslide victory for Workers Party GB leader George Galloway in Rochdale and the collapse of Labour’s vote from over 50% to less than 8%, with Starmer’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza a major driver.
The new movement – dubbed ‘Collective’ – has been established following months of deliberation amongst grassroots campaign groups and prospective independent candidates for both council and parliamentary elections. Though it is not establishing a new party in time to contest this year’s election, it intends to do so onceit has grown a mass membership base.
Feinstein said:
It’s not just Labour Party members who were the victims of Starmer’s entirely fictitious campaign for leadership of the party. The people of Holborn and St Pancras also elected him twice on a socialist platform under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Having lived in the constituency for over 20 years, I’ve been overwhelmed by the support and strength of feeling amongst local communities – and across the country – who are crying out for a response to the deeply corrupt, anti-democratic and out of touch Labour Party under Starmer. Under his leadership, the party has now completely abandoned working people and marginalised communities in an escalating effort to out-Tory the Tories.
But this election must do more than just provide an alternative to the pro-genocide, pro-austerity Sunak-Starmer circus. It must also mark the beginnings of a new mass movement of working people that can challenge the Westminster bubble once and for all. That’s why I’m proud to be joining Collective which is uniting sections of the left and will eventually transform into a new political party backed by an organised and democratic movement.
Feinstein also clarified regarding his parliamentary candidacy;
I have not declared that I am definitely standing. I’ve indicated my willingness to do so but am still consulting widely inside and outside the constituency.
Second, I believe that a new grassroots movement, built out of the extraordinary solidarity for Gaza, a rejection of permanent austerity, and the sclerotic, corrupt and elitist nature of establishment politics, is essential. The form that takes will be decided amongst people at the grassroots – a movement for the people, of the people and by the people.
Saturday’s event is about the councillors who have taken a stand against the indefensible role that the UK government and the Labour Party have taken in support of the genocide in Gaza.
Collective spokesperson Pamela Fitzpatrick, independent candidate for Harrow West:
Our political system – and now the Labour Party itself – is fundamentally anti-democratic and rigged against new parties, especially on the left. The only way to address this is to build a mass movement outside of the Labour Party as a foundation for a new political party that is truly free of vested interests and which can offer a real alternative to the pro-austerity and pro-war two party system. All around the country, independent candidates have and are coming forward to fight this election on a common platform calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, a real pay rise and decent housing for all, higher taxes for the rich, an end to privatisation of the NHS, and an end to unnecessary and unjust war. That is the foundation which Collective will build on, and eventually transform into a political party that will change the face of British politics.
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Well over 100 civilians murdered as Israeli tanks, gunboats fire on crowd waiting for aid delivery
Terror and chaos in Gaza City after IDF ‘trap’
Injured wait on lorries and a donkey cart (social media image)
More than a hundred Palestinian civilians have been slaughtered and many more injured, after Israeli tanks, gunboats and armoured vehicles opened fire on a crowd of people waiting for a scheduled aid delivery to arrive. The Israeli military has admitted opening fire, claiming that troops felt ‘endangered’. The IDF also tried to blame the civilians for their own deaths, saying some were trampled – presumably as terrified people tried to escape the fire zone.
Some reports have put the death toll at 170, with more than a thousand wounded. Social media posts show the carnage and the attempts to evacuate the injured. The Al Jazeera news service reported that the victims had fallen into a ‘trap’ set by the Israeli military:
Palestinians who witnessed the Israeli attack on aid seekers in Gaza city say it was a trap.
According to human rights group Euro-Med Monitor, Israeli forces have killed almost 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza since 7 October last year, the vast majority of them civilians and a large majority women and children, and have wounded more than 70,000 others, many of them severely. The World Health Organization and others have reported that more than a million people are in, or at imminent risk of, starvation because of Israel’s blockade and military assault, and victims of starvation have already died.
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Israel supporters shamelessly smear Bushnell with ‘dead jews’ claim. It’s an outright lie
US serviceman whose self-immolation resonated around the world did not say ‘Palestine will be free when all the jews are dead’, as multiple pro-Israel accounts have claimed
Supporters of apartheid Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinian civilians have begun spreading a claim that Aaron Bushnell, the US serviceman who died this week after setting himself on fire outside Israel’s embassy in Washington, posted a comment to his Reddit account that ‘Palestine will be free when all the jews [sic] are dead’.
The image has been touted by accounts well known for dismissive and often racist commentary about Palestinians as a means of trying to justify Israel’s war crimes. ‘Comedy’ writer Lee Kern was one of the most prominent:
Kern not only propagated the fake claim but described the whole of Palestine as a ‘racist hate movement’
Kern described the whole of Palestine, not just a resistance group, as a ‘suicide death cult’
Writer Kern’s 2021 comment appears to have been deleted but was commented on as early as 2021 and he does not appear to have made a denial to the many times it has been thrown at him
A careful examination of Bushnell’s Reddit account by fact-checker Snopes, over a wider period than the two months ago that the image shows – including using a service that records deleted posts – showed that no such post had ever been made by Bushnell and the image is completely fake. A reverse image search also revealed no other instances before the image began to be circulated by propagandists.
Bushnell’s shocking protest has focused even greater attention on Israel’s slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children. The attempt by supporters of the slaughter to divert from his aim in his terrible protest by posting an outright lie about him after his death is shameful and entirely unsurprising.
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