TODAY is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people and it is needed now more than ever. Our solidarity did not begin in October 2023 nor will it end once the war on Gaza is over, however, given the ongoing genocide it is essential that we step up our actions now.

Over 44,000 Palestinians have now been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, over two thirds of them women and children. In March, the UN reported that more children had been killed in Gaza in four months than in four years of war worldwide. Thousands more have been killed since. 

Ten children a day face an amputation with no anaesthetic and over 3,000 children have had at least one limb amputated.

Across the West Bank attacks have increased significantly, with over 650 Palestinians killed since October 2023. A report released by Defence for Children International Palestine (DCIP) Targeting Childhood: Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank, states that 20 per cent of the Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces and settlers in West Bank, since 2000 have been killed after October 7, at a rate of one child every two days. 

Despite this, our political leaders continue to sell Israel weapons even as it stands charged in the  International Court of Justice for the crime of genocide.

It is obscene to continue arms sales at a time when two senior Israeli government leaders stand personally accused of crimes against humanity, including extermination and murder, starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, intentionally directing acts against a civilian population, persecution and wilfully causing great suffering.

This week the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders including Benjamin Netanyahu. This further underlines the disgrace of Britain’s ongoing complicity in Israel’s genocide.

Last month an Al Jazeera investigation found that the UK conducted more surveillance flights over Gaza than any other country.    

The supposed “safe zones” in Gaza are facing repeated attacks and evacuation orders are forcing already displaced civilians into increasingly overcrowded and uninhabitable shelters.

The situation in North Gaza is horrific. Save the Children recently reported that around 130,000 children under the age of 10 have been trapped for 50 days in areas in northern Gaza that are almost entirely inaccessible to aid workers and are not receiving food or medical supplies despite the warnings of famine.

The UN also warned, nearly a month ago, that the entire population of North Gaza governorate was at risk of dying, yet attempts by aid groups to access the area have been repeatedly denied by Israeli forces.  

Palestinians are facing bombardment from the sea, air and land, with images of burned and decapitated children becoming a regular occurrence on our social media feeds.

85 per cent of schools in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed and all 12 universities have been completely or partially destroyed. 625,000 students have had no access to education for an entire school year. They have witnessed horrific and terrifying events and the trauma they have suffered will take years if not decades to overcome.

Right now every ounce of our energy and effort must be focused on calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and the ending of weapon sales to Israel.

The government’s announcement that it is suspending the sale of some weapons to Israel is not enough. A comprehensive end to all arms sales is a necessary step towards ending Britain’s complicity in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.

The UK arms export licensing regime allows the UK to export military goods used by Israel through “incorporation licences,” weapons, components and military technology are exported to a third state, incorporated in larger weapons systems, and then exported on to Israel.

One example of this is the F-35 fighter jets used to bomb Gaza. Campaign Against Arms Trade has reported that the UK provides approximately 15 per cent of the components in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet, an aircraft revealed to have been used  in a massacre committed in July in al Mawasi camp killing 90 Palestinians and injuring at least 300 and al Mawasi camp was hit again recently killing at least 40 people.

Amnesty UK has called on the government to withdraw the 2002 incorporation guidelines as part of ending all arms sales to Israel and 18 charities have called on the UK to end all arms transfers to Israel.

Right now Palestinians are standing in the dark but we know that they will rise again as they have always done. Our task is to stand with them, to escalate our actions, to keep speaking out.

As Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, told us recently we must not become genocide weary as Palestinians in Gaza do not have that luxury.

Palestinians tell us that they don’t need our tears they need our voices as theirs are silenced. But they need more than our words — they need our actions too. This involves not only protesting on the streets, putting pressure on our politicians but also pushing forward with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. 

Palestinian trade unionists have called for the global trade union movement to put pressure on organisations and companies complicit with Israel’s crimes. That call makes explicit the need for trade unions to build BDS campaigns and to make their unions apartheid-free zones. 

There is much that we must continue to do in building our movement but we cannot and must not stop until there is a permanent ceasefire, until the genocide is ended until all the walls of apartheid are dismantled, until the day when Palestinians are finally free.

Louise Regan is national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.