“The British government is acting like this is a case of ‘a few bad apples’, but it knows that to be untrue.”
Rvyka Barnard, Deputy Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, spoke at the ‘End UK Complicity in Genocide: Sanction Israel’ event held this week by Arise Festival and Labour & Palestine. You can read an edited version of her speech or watch the event back below:
This evening, comrades have been holding an emergency demonstration outside Downing Street to raise the urgent case of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a Palestinian doctor from Gaza who was abducted and imprisoned by the Israeli military in December 2024. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s story is remarkable and speaks to so many aspects of the larger Palestinian story. He comes from a refugee family, like the majority of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. He studied to be a doctor with the intention to serve his people, specialising in children’s medicine and care for newborn babies, including those with complex health issues. This particular specialisation has long been much needed in Gaza as over the past two decades, Israel had attacked Gaza repeatedly with overwhelming military force, leaving the population with huge numbers of injuries and ongoing medical issues, especially the children.
In 2024, when Israel began to attack the Kamal Adwan hospital, where Dr. Hussam was the director, the Israeli military said that they would allow him and a few others to leave first, that they would spare him but continue the attacks otherwise. Dr. Hussam refused to leave as long as patients and staff remained, and he made this clear to the attacking army, that he would not willingly leave the hospital to be destroyed and the staff and patients arrested, injured or killed. Dr. Hussam saw every single life as precious–his fellow medical workers, his patients, the children and the babies, including those who were premature and probably had little chance to live anyway. He would not leave anyone to be attacked alone. What a powerful message of solidarity.
Israel subsequently arrested and imprisoned Dr. Hussam, and ever since then, for over 18 months, Israel has punished him for that principled stance. Israel threw him in solitary confinement and brutally tortured him to the point that his lawyer has said that he is now unrecognisable, and that his life is in imminent danger. Dr. Hussam was performing the most sacred task of caring for the ill and injured, and he is being targeted by Israel exactly because of that and because of what he represents: the refusal of the Palestinian people to succumb to apartheid and colonial domination. He represents the care Palestinians show for their communities and their people; and their determination in their struggle for freedom, against incredible odds.
Dr. Hussam’s story is important for our topic tonight because of the urgency of his case, but also because his story is the story of thousands of other Palestinians right now, imprisoned and tortured by Israel. His is also the story of the millions in Gaza and Palestinians everywhere whose rights and freedom are guaranteed by international law, but who have for generations, watched their rights, and international law in general, trampled over and dragged through the mud by Israel, with the full support of the British government. That is why our call for sanctions on Israel is so important, as it’s the only set of measures that can begin to respond to that impunity.
For decades now, evidence has been presented to successive British governments of Israel’s clear and unambiguous violations of international law. Israel’s regular use of torture and mass detention as a tool of political repression, holding thousands without charge or trial; numerous violations of the Geneva Conventions. amounting to war crimes; the implementation of a system of apartheid, illegal occupation, the constant expansion of its colonial-settlements in the occupied West Bank. The list goes on, and now that list includes genocide.
This evidence has been presented to the British government by international human rights groups, independent UN fact finding missions, even British politicians and lawyers who have travelled to Palestine to see for themselves and document the abuses in official reports to the government. Of course, Palestinians, the victims of Israel’s crimes, have copiously and meticulously documented the violence being done to them, presented it to British government decision makers. This includes Al-Haq who we heard from tonight, who has been punished by Israel and the US for its submission of evidence about Israel’s crimes to the International Criminal Court. I’ve sat in sessions where British government ministers listen and nod sympathetically and take notes of what is said by Palestinian victims of Israel’s crimes, assuring them something will be done.
Yet after more than 2.5 years of genocide, the British government has done more harm than good. Every small step in the right direction is good, but so outweighed by the overwhelming complicity of the British government. The government suspended a few arms licences to Israel but has maintained a robust trade with Israel in the meantime, including the trade in arms and military technology. A few weeks ago, after tremendous pressure to do so, the British government announced limited sanctions on six companies and individuals involved in settlements. However, as many have said before, this has almost no effect, when Israel has an entire economy built through the settlements and stolen land. The British government is acting like this is a case of ‘a few bad apples’, but it knows that to be untrue.
All of these steps in the right direction, are too little and long overdue, but they are a result of the immense pressure that our movement has created. The lesson we take from that is that now is the time to increase the pressure, not to let it slip.
We should have no illusions that a new Prime Minister will mean an overnight transformation in policy, but we must see it as an opportunity, to take this discussion we’ve had tonight, these concerns, and these demands forward immediately. We won’t be waiting for a new Prime Minister to get settled in first.
Our next national march is on 18 July. It’s always important for us to come out in the streets for Palestine. It gives people in Palestine hope, it shows that we have not forgotten them. But this march is especially important because of the political moment in Britain. It will be our way of showing the new Prime Minister that we have not gone away, that we are not waiting to see what will happen, that we are bringing our demands for sanctions to the new leader on day one. I hope to see all of you there in the streets on 18 July so we can put forward our demands: end the genocide, sanctions on Israel now, free Palestine!
- This is an edited version of the speech by Ryvka Barnard at the ‘End UK Complicity in Genocide: Sanction Israel’ event held this week by Arise Festival and Labour & Palestine. You can watch it here.
- Ryvka Barnard is the Deputy Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). You can follow the PSC on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram.
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