Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators hit streets of London (VIDEO)

People with banners and flags marched through the center of the British capital calling for a ceasefire in Gaza

A huge crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators took to the streets of central London to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Videos of the event have gone viral on social media.

The march was reportedly organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. According to its Facebook page, the official route of the demonstration began at Victoria Embankment and ended at Parliament Square.

Tens of thousands of protesters have gathered in the capital and across the country for rallies to denounce Israel’s attack on Gaza and urge an immediate ceasefire, the BBC reports. According to the outlet, over 1,000 Metropolitan Police officers have been deployed across the capital amid the mass demonstrations.

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On Wednesday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called for the release of hostages taken by Hamas during the October 7 attack on Israel and for humanitarian aid to be brought into Gaza. He added, however, that “for all of that to happen, there has to be a safer environment, which of course necessitates specific pauses as distinct from a ceasefire.”

Since the Palestinian militant group launched its surprise attack, killing over 1,400 and taking more than 200 hostages, Gaza has been subjected to heavy bombardment and a total blockade by Israel. According to Palestinian officials, the death toll in the enclave has exceeded 7,000, including 3,000 children.

Though Gaza’s healthcare system has reportedly collapsed, Israel continues to attack the densely populated enclave. On Friday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari announced that ground forces are expanding their operations in Gaza, in addition to the attacks of the past few days.

⚡️NOW | 🇬🇧 | In London, huge “free Palestine” protests. pic.twitter.com/65cuL8g0WW

— Sphithiphithi Evaluator (@_AfricanSoil) October 28, 2023

Later that day, Gaza’s largest telecommunications provider, Paltel, reported that the most recent bombardment destroyed “all remaining international routes” connecting the enclave to the outside world.

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‘Why do you call it a massacre?’ Palestinian journalists are fighting both for their lives and their message

It’s an uphill battle to tell the world about the events in Gaza, as one reporter found out in her run-in with Western media

Since October 7, when the Hamas attack on Israeli territory and civilians triggered a destructive bombing campaign against Gaza, Palestinian civilians have been struggling to get the full extent of their plight represented in Western media.

Whether it be British state-media, the BBC, stating that Israelis are “killed,” while Palestinians simply “die”, or CNN, whose reporter had to publicly apologize for “confirming” Israeli reports about babies being beheaded by Hamas, the Western media has displayed shocking bias and double-standards when reporting on the current Gaza-Israel war. Even when a Reuters journalist, Issam Abdallah, was killed along the Lebanese-Israeli border on October 13, the outlet itself wouldn’t even say who committed the strike, instead writing that “missiles fired from the direction of Israel” struck him and six other journalists.

There are few spaces in the Western corporate and state-funded broadcast media where a balanced and neutral approach is taken towards the current war in Gaza. Merely questioning Israel’s right to respond in the way it has chosen, indiscriminately bombing residential areas and openly blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza, is being treated as mutiny, let alone an honest discussion on what led up to the Hamas attack on October 7. Calls for a ceasefire are being labeled as radical and unacceptable. A top State Department official, Josh Paul, amongst others, has resigned from the US government in opposition to this.

One case that highlights the uphill battle Palestinians are having to fight for representation in Western media is that of Gaza-based journalist Wafa al-Udaini.

Al-Udaini was invited to speak on Talk TV, the channel that broadcasts Piers Morgan show, on October 16. Prior to giving the floor to Wafa, host Julia Hartley-Brewer had invited an Israeli military spokesperson, Peter Lerner, on for a discussion, during which he made a number of unsubstantiated allegations. Those went unchallenged by the host, who treated Lerner with respect and allowed him time to finish his points. The tone changes radically when Wafa comes on. Every question is phrased in a way to make her seem non-credible, as Hartley-Brewer challenges her by repeating back Israeli military talking points, even disputing Wafa’s description of civilian deaths as a “massacre” – the same word the host herself makes a point of using to refer to the Hamas attack on Israel.

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Hartley-Brewer then asks al-Udaini what she thinks would be “the reasonable response” by Israel to the Hamas attack. That in itself is a complicated question with no easy answer to pack into a few sentences, but when posed to someone on the receiving end of a bombing on the scale of what’s going on in Gaza, it becomes downright loaded. Yet as the Palestinian journalist attempts to provide context or doubt the appropriateness of asking such a question, the host never allows her to make her point, continuously interrupting her and demanding an immediate and direct response. Finally, after giving al-Udaini “one last chance” to answer, Hartley-Brewer cuts her off and ends the interview.

“The anchor killed me,” Wafa told me about the interview as an expression of how insulted she felt. “I feel upset because I didn’t get to tell her anything… She interrupted me and then ended the call by saying “‘we don’t have much time’.” As a reporter on the ground, she was covering events in the English language, and even lost a friend and fellow journalist, Saeed Taweel, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on October 10. She is not the only one, as multiple journalists have been killed or have lost friends and family members since the war began. “Things really can’t be described,” she told me that day. After having experienced the horrifying bloodshed in Gaza, living under the threat of her entire family being wiped out and having lost a colleague, Wafa fell victim to the double-standards of Western media, having to explain the use of the word “massacre” by someone actually reporting from Gaza.

I also spoke to a Palestinian journalist working as a cameraperson and fixer, who was stationed at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis for over a week. The journalist wished to conceal their identity for security reasons and wouldn’t specify where they are currently based, but told me the following:

“As a journalist that is working here in the Gaza Strip, I have covered a number of wars, which you can check the human rights reports about, they will tell you about massacres against civilians. At the Nasser Hospital, we see times where there are non-stop ambulances, cars carrying dead people and we do not see military people killed, it’s all civilians. When you are actually a reporter on the ground, you cannot see what you are seeing and describe it as anything other than a massacre. You tell me, if you see nothing but dead children for an hour, what else are you supposed to say other than it is a massacre? If we were seeing dead fighters, sure, we can have another discussion, but this is the worst war we’ve ever seen and it’s almost all dead children that we are witnessing.”

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In the interview with al-Udaini, Hartley-Brewer pointed out that the Israeli military has asked people to move from the north of Gaza to south “so that they can tackle the Hamas fighters,” then proceeded to press the Palestinian as to why she hadn’t left her home in Gaza City. When al-Udaini returns the question, asking “why to leave, this is my homeland, if someone asks you to leave are you going to leave your home?” To which the host responds that “if someone said they are going to bomb me and my family to death, like you are saying ‘a massacre’, then I would leave, yeah I would leave.” By insinuating that al-Udaini is putting her family, as well as herself, at risk, Hartley-Brewer stops just short of implying that should her home be bombed, the responsibility does not fully lie on the Israeli army.

Israeli media picked up on the interview, using it as evidence that Palestinian journalists can’t answer the question as to what the Israeli military should do to them. This, al-Udaini says, was followed by calls to her home from agents working for the Israeli state, some of whom were pretending to be part of international organizations and requested information on the number of people living in her home. Wafa is now being cautious with what she says over the phone and wasn’t able to answer many questions I asked her for fear of how the Israeli military could potentially use it.

If any media outlet in the West were to begin an interview with an Israeli who had suffered threats from Hamas, had lost family and friends, or had rockets fall near their home, by asking them “do you condemn the Israeli military” and “what do you think the Palestinian response against your community should be,” the bias in their approach would be clear to see. However, when the same line of questioning is put to Palestinians, it is treated as commonplace. The reality is that this is a clear display of double-standards, but when coupled with a lack of empathy for people who have suffered the horrors of war, it displays something else – dehumanization.

US congressman pleads not guilty to ten felonies amid expulsion threat

George Santos, a New York Republican who faked his resume to get elected, faces charges of identity theft and fraud

Republican congressman George Santos pleaded not guilty to charges including identity theft, embezzlement and wire fraud on Friday at the US District Court in Central Islip, New York. The New York representative is facing potential expulsion from the House of Representatives as soon as next week.  

Santos, who became the first openly gay Republican elected to the House in 2022, was charged earlier this month with stealing campaign donors’ identities and running up thousands of dollars in fraudulent charges on their credit cards.  

He was also accused of embezzling funds from his company and working with his former campaign manager – who has already pleaded guilty to her part in the alleged crime – to falsify campaign donation records in order to qualify for financial support from the Republican Party.  

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Santos had already been indicted in May on 13 federal charges, including seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds and two counts of making materially false statements to the House. Among other claims, he was accused of setting up a phony company to solicit “campaign contributions” that he diverted to personal expenses, including designer clothing.  

Following his second indictment earlier this month, the embattled representative insisted that he still planned to run for reelection in 2024 despite his legal troubles, vowing to fight the charges “until the bitter end.” 

Fellow New York Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito introduced a resolution on Thursday to expel Santos from Congress. The freshman congressman is “not fit to serve his constituents as a United States representative,” D’Esposito stated, mentioning Santos’ bogus claims about his and his family’s connections to “major events, including the Holocaust, 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the Pulse nightclub shooting,” as well as the mounting criminal charges against him.  

The measure was co-sponsored by four other congressmen and is expected to be voted on as early as next week. In response, Santos issued several “points of clarification” in a post to X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, stressing that he was not resigning and was entitled to due process.  

Newly minted House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson appeared to agree during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday, in which Johnson, citing the Republicans’ “razor-thin majority” in Congress, affirmed that “George Santos is due due process.”  

 Santos’ career in Congress has been dogged by revelations that he largely fictionalized his personal and political history – from his professional resume to his religious heritage and his criminal record – only to sail into a contested House seat without so much as a cursory fact-check from the Democratic opposition. He has admitted to “embellishing” his biography but has denied all wrongdoing.

War entering ‘new phase’ – Israeli defense minister

Israel will continue to send troops and tanks into Gaza, Yoav Gallant said on Saturday

Israel has “moved on to a new phase in the war,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced on Saturday, adding that ground operations in Gaza will continue “until new orders are given.”

Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza with airstrikes throughout Friday night and into Saturday morning, as ground troops and armor were launched in a significant incursion into the Palestinian enclave. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that it destroyed more than 150 underground tunnels and bunkers used by Hamas, while columns of tanks and troops engaged the militant group’s fighters.

“We have moved on to a new phase in the war,” Gallant said on Saturday in remarks carried by Israeli media. “The ground in Gaza shook. We attacked above and below the ground, we attacked terrorist operatives at all levels, in all places,” he declared, adding that similar operations in the enclave would continue “until new orders are given.”

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Israel ‘expanded’ operations in Gaza after hostage talks stalled – Axios

In a briefing on Saturday morning, IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters that the troops sent into Gaza the previous night “are still in the field and continuing the war.” 

The IDF said that it killed Asem Abu Rakaba, a top Hamas official in charge of air defense, and Rateb Abu Sahiban, a Hamas naval commander, in two separate airstrikes.

Hamas said in a statement that its fighters ambushed Israeli forces on Friday, inflicting heavy losses on the attackers. In a separate statement on Saturday, the group said that it was engaging Israeli troops near the northeastern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun and the refugee camp of al-Bureji, located in the center of the enclave.

The IDF’s expansion of its operation comes almost three weeks after Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on the Jewish state, hammering Israeli towns and cities with rockets and raiding settlements near the Gaza border. Around 1,400 Israelis have been killed since the war began, while Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 7,000 Palestinians, according to the latest figures from the IDF and the Gaza Health Ministry, respectively.

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US ‘entering battle’ in Gaza – Hamas

Both Gallant and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned for the past two weeks that a major ground operation in Gaza would be imminent, although the decision to send in troops was reportedly postponed several times, with media reports identifying the US and Netanyahu himself as responsible for the delay.

It is unclear whether Friday’s incursion will be followed by a larger invasion. According to a New York Times report on Thursday, some members of the Israeli government favor “a less ambitious plan involving several more limited incursions that target one small part of the enclave at a time.” There are concerns that a full-scale invasion may result in heavy Israeli casualties and trigger an escalation with other regional players, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.

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Erdogan accuses Israel of ‘war crimes’

As West Jerusalem expands its operation in Gaza, the Turkish president has hardened his rhetoric against the Jewish state

Türkiye will present evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza to the world, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a rally on Saturday. While Erdogan initially positioned himself as a potential mediator between the Israelis and Palestinians, he has since sided with the “freedom fighters” in Hamas.

Israel’s operation in Gaza is “not defense, but an open, vicious massacre,” Erdogan told thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Istanbul. 

“Israel has been openly committing war crimes for exactly 22 days, but Western leaders have not even called for a ceasefire,” he declared, adding that Türkiye is gathering information to “present Israel to the world as a war criminal.”

More than 7,000 Palestinians, including nearly 3,000 children, have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since the current conflict began, according to the latest figures from the Gaza Health Ministry. Israeli forces dramatically ramped up their bombardment of the strip on Friday night, before sending troops and tanks into the strip.

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The Israeli air campaign began immediately after Hamas fighters raided Israeli towns and villages near the Gaza border on October 7, killing around 1,400 people and capturing around 250 hostages. 

Within days of the attack, Erdogan announced that he was “ready for all kinds of mediation, including prisoner exchange, if the parties request it.” Erdogan called on both sides to show restraint, but in the weeks that followed, his focus shifted almost exclusively to Israel.

The Turkish president declared that Israel’s siege of Gaza – which prevented food, water, medicine, and electricity from reaching the enclave – was “against the laws of war,” and accused Israel last week of committing “genocide” against the Palestinians. 

In a speech to lawmakers on Wednesday, he said that “Hamas is not a terrorist organization, it is a group of freedom fighters, ‘mujahideen’ [holy warriors] waging a battle to protect its lands and people.” Erdogan also said that he had canceled plans to visit Israel over the bombardment of Gaza.

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