Banners on Nakba Day

Here are posters and banners photographed at the Nakba Day March in London on Saturday 18th May. They are not mine and I do not necessarily endorse every sentiment. But these are heartfelt and impassioned. Please read and reflect.

A detailed poster carried through London.

So many homemade, heartfelt posters and banners.

All eyes on Rafah. The last refuge. The one everyone was sent to as a safe area. The one access point for aid. Now invaded, bombed, a killing field.

This poster features Handala, a cartoon figure created in 1969 by political cartoonist Naji al-Ali that has become an iconic symbol of Palestinian identity and defiance, “portraying war, resistance, and the Palestinian identity”

Safe behind defensive walls, an occupier knows no peace in their heart. An unjust peace contrasts with liberation, which is for everyone.

Gosh, the anger is palpable at the Labour Party’s leadership, which has failed to challenge genocide. Labour isn’t even in government, yet. Will this influence the general election I wonder?

Ask yourself … why the key as a symbol of Nakba Day?

I couldn’t work out the symbolism of the horse.

A change in mood here. At the side of the March route, pleas for liberation from oppression in Iran.

More than 100 press and journalists killed in Gaza since this escalation of the occupation began in October. This guy is present at each protest, cosplaying as press, his flag a tribute and memorial to those who would open our eyes.

A simple and clear demand. Behind is the UK war memorial dedicated to women on the home front.

Flying kites is a pastime in Gaza and a potent symbol of freedom.

The words on the kite say “If I must die, you must live to tell my story” the first lines of a poem by the late Refaat Alareer, professor of world literature and creative writing. He was murdered by occupation forces on 6th December 2023. He had written the poem for his eldest daughter, Shaimaa. On 26 April 2024, five months after Alareer’s death, Shaimaa, her husband Mohammed Siyam, and their newborn baby were killed by an airstrike on their home in Gaza City.

After the Nakba, the catastrophe, people still hold the keys to their ancestral homes from which they were driven out three generations ago.

A shrine by the roadside. Each small white bundle represents a child in a shroud killed on each day since October 2023.

It turns out that the International Criminal Court has its sights set on arresting those who, allegedly, instigated terrible crimes.

We passed a counter protest of a few dozen far right extremists. One of their banners is included here for comic effect.

You need only ask yourself …

“You need only ask yourself…where was I when genocidal acts were being committed in Gaza against the Palestinian people?”

When, in the Al Awda Hospital, the surgical case list whiteboard became useless because of the overwhelming number of people arriving severely injured by munitions and needing treatment, instead, these words were written:
“Whoever stays
Until the end
Will tell the story
We did what we could
*remember us*

The case was presented by South Africa at the International Court of Justice for an end to “The first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time” 

“Some might say that the very reputation of international law, its ability and willingness to bind and to protect all people equally, hangs in the balance.”, (Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC).

Remembrance day

On 11th November, there was much hype from politicians of all hue that to march for a ceasefire and lifting of the siege in Gaza was in some way disrespectful to fallen and surviving soldiers. Very many of us, by contrast, felt Armistice or Remembrance Day to be the most important day on which to call for an end to the indiscriminate bombing of civilians and the denial of the very basics for survival to an entrapped population.

This is an unfolding genocide by Israel, supported by the western powers. As I write, the news from Gaza grows thin as telecommunications fail. The largest hospital no longer functions and is now described as a “death zone”, another is surrounded. The death count stopped days ago at just short of 12000 as no infrastructure remains to number or name the killed.

With the siege ongoing, I fear that infectious disease, injury, exhaustion, malnutrition and ultimately dehydration will result in the numbers killed escalating exponentially. What will be found when once again Gaza is opened? How many of the more than two million people will have survived?

It is my understanding that no nation can claim “self defense” as a legal argument for making war on people living within territory it controls and nor is collective punishment of civilians permitted under international law. As citizens of the nations complicit in this slaughter, we have to make our voices heard. Together, in civic life, in our trades unions and political parties, on the streets in peaceful protest, we have influence.

Although the march never went near the Cenotaph, London is so full of monuments to war, it is hard to avoid them. In some of these sketches can be seen the Wellington Arch, proclaiming Wellington’s defeat of Napoleon. A bronze on top of this depicts the Angel of Peace descending on the four-horsed chariot of War. 

I believe there will be another march in London this coming Saturday.