Press Release: Veritas Press C.I.C.
Author: Kamran Faqir
Article Date Published: 09 Aug 2025 at 07:37 GMT
Category: UK | Palestine-Gaza | US-Israel At War | Protest
Source(s): Veritas Press C.I.C. | Multi News Agencies
Today, August 9, 2025, pro-Palestine marches and demonstrations are scheduled across major cities: London, Kuala Lumpur, Istanbul, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Santiago, and Buenos Aires, among others. Activists are channelling righteous fury over the U.S. government’s continued military funding of Israel, condemning what they call genocide in Gaza with U.S. weapons and tax dollars.
In London, organisers warn of potential mass arrests if the protest proceeds, amid ongoing tensions over the proscription of activist groups.
Why People Are Protesting Israel
- Activists assert that American taxpayers are complicit, funding what they see as settler-colonial violence and expressing frustration that the U.S. also appears to ignore escalating climate crises at home.
- They reject any notion of moral ambiguity. There are no“both sides” in what they frame as 77 years of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and disenfranchisement. Israel, armed by billions in U.S. support, is portrayed as the colonial aggressor inflicting relentless attacks on Indigenous Palestinians.
- Gaza, long treated as an “open-air prison,” now faces historic levels of starvation, bombing, displacement, and civilian carnage. Every 40 minutes, Israeli operations allegedly claim another Palestinian child’s life. Protesters insist that this is not normal, “our rage is sacred,” and they will make it unavoidable.
They urge communities worldwide to unite under one demand: “Stop arming Israel!”
In Tel Aviv: Hostage Families Push Back.
Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv, families of Israeli captives held in Gaza staged a powerful weekly protest outside the Israeli army headquarters. They implored the government to negotiate a deal with Hamas that secures the release of all hostages and to halt military action in areas where captives may be held.
Latest Developments: Gaza City Occupation Plan Sparks Global Backlash.
In a bold escalation today, Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan to seize control of Gaza City, bringing a significant portion of the enclave under Israeli security control. The move is being promoted as a way to demolish Hamas’s stronghold and facilitate hostage rescues.
International Reaction:
- Germany halted all weapons exports potentially usable in Gaza, labelling the plan deeply troubling.
- The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres condemned it as a “dangerous escalation,” warned of a massive humanitarian fallout, and called for immediate action.
- Other global voices, including France, the UK, and China, likewise denounce the operation as a breach of international law.
Domestic Opposition In Israel:
- Hostage families, opposition politicians like Yair Lapid, and retired military leaders labelled the plan a disaster that endangers lives rather than saves them, accusing Netanyahu’s government of recklessness.
- The Israeli Defence Forces issued strong briefings warning that the move risks both Israeli soldiers and the remaining captives.
Humanitarian Toll:
- More than 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, with a tragic majority being women and children. Gaza is facing severe food shortages, displacement, and a collapse of basic infrastructure.
The demand to grant Palestinians the right to live, the right to return, and self-determination directly echoes core principles of international law and decades of UN resolutions that Israel has repeatedly defied.
- Right to Live — This is the most fundamental human right under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 3) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 6). Israel’s ongoing siege, military bombardments, and deliberate deprivation of food, water, and medicine in Gaza constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and, according to UN experts, may amount to genocide.
- Right of Return — UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (1948) affirms that Palestinian refugees “wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.” For over 75 years, millions of refugees, many of whom now face starvation in Gaza, have been barred from returning to the towns and villages from which they or their families were expelled during the Nakba.
- Right to Self-Determination — Enshrined in Article 1 of both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, this right means that Palestinians must be able to freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social, and cultural development, free from occupation, apartheid, and settler-colonial domination.
The refusal to uphold these rights sustains a system of ethnic cleansing and apartheid. The international community’s role is not to mediate between “two equal sides,” but to dismantle the structures of oppression and occupation, as was done with apartheid South Africa.
The message from protesters worldwide today is unambiguous: Palestinians are not asking for charity, they are demanding the rights they are already guaranteed under international law.
The chants echoing through the streets from London to Buenos Aires, from Istanbul to Kuala Lumpur, are not vague slogans; they are precise demands rooted in decades of Palestinian struggle and international law:
- An End to Genocide – Stop the mass killing of Palestinians, the deliberate starvation policies, and the destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. The ongoing assault has killed over 100,000 people, the majority women and children, and has been condemned by UN experts as a possible genocide carried out with U.S.-made weapons.
- An End to Apartheid – Dismantle the system of laws and military decrees that segregate, disenfranchise, and dispossess Palestinians, recognised by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the UN as apartheid in violation of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
- An End to Erasure – Protect Palestinian identity, heritage, and historical memory from deliberate destruction. From the flattening of entire neighbourhoods to the rewriting of textbooks and renaming of villages, protesters say Israel’s project has always aimed to erase the Palestinian people from their own land.
These are not radical aspirations; they are baseline obligations under the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In the words painted on a banner in Barcelona today: “We will not stop until Palestine is free, free from genocide, free from apartheid, and free from erasure.”
Conclusion: The World’s Patience Has Run Out.
What is unfolding today is not merely another cycle of war; it is the culmination of 77 years of dispossession, apartheid, and systemic erasure of the Palestinian people. The pro-Palestine marches stretching from London to Kuala Lumpur are not spontaneous outbursts; they are a sustained indictment of an international system that has enabled Israel’s impunity while criminalising those who demand justice.
The facts are indisputable: Israel’s war machine, funded by billions in U.S. military aid, is killing a Palestinian child roughly every 40 minutes. It is enforcing starvation, bombing hospitals, and destroying what little civilian infrastructure remains. This is not an accident of war; it is a strategy. UN experts have called it a textbook case of genocide, yet the same governments that declared “never again” after Rwanda and Srebrenica continue to send weapons, diplomatic cover, and funding.
The planned occupation of Gaza City is not about “security” or “defeating Hamas”; it is a land seizure disguised as counterterrorism, another step in the long-standing effort to permanently fragment and control Palestinian territory. Opposition is not only from human rights groups; even within Israel, hostage families, opposition leaders, and retired generals warn that Netanyahu’s government is more concerned with political survival than human life.
The demands from the streets are as clear as they are urgent:
- End the genocide.
- End the apartheid.
- End the erasure of the Palestinian people.
- Uphold the right to live, the right to return, and the right to self-determination.
Anything less is complicity. The era of polite appeals has passed; the world is now staring down the moral failure of its own institutions. If the international community refuses to act decisively, through arms embargoes, sanctions, and prosecutions, it will not be a bystander to genocide, but an accomplice.
History will record not just what Israel is doing in Gaza, but what the world allowed to happen.
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