More than 350 arrested in London for supporting a pro-Palestinian group

BarcelonaLondon's Metropolitan Police arrested at least 365 people this Saturday who were demonstrating in Parliament Square in support of the Palestine Action group, which was outlawed and declared a "terrorist organization" by the government in July for having carried out disruptive actions to denounce the situation in Gaza. This Saturday, in the Gaza Strip, eight more people were shot dead by the Israeli army while trying to obtain food at distribution points run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Fund. Eleven people also died on Friday from hunger and malnutrition, according to sources from the Gaza Ministry of Health.

The disruptive acts carried out by Palestine Action included vandalizing two aircraft at a British Royal Air Force military base and blocking the entrance to the Israeli defense company Elbit Systems in Bristol, in southwest England. Following the outlawing of this group, membership in or support for Palestine Action is considered a crime in the United Kingdom, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, according to the Terrorism Act passed in 2000.

However, some 600 people demonstrated in London this Saturday in support of Palestine Action. Police arrested anyone carrying a banner in support of the group. Amnesty International denounced the police action: "The arrest of peaceful protesters is a violation of the UK's international obligations to protect the rights of freedom of expression and assembly," it wrote on social media.

Meeting in an atypical place

Meanwhile, the White House special envoy for peacekeeping missions, Steve Witkoff, is meeting this Saturday with Qatari Prime Minister Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Tani on the island of Ibiza to discuss a possible plan to end the war in Gaza, according to the US media outlet Axios. There are no official details of the meeting, nor is it known why they chose Ibiza for the meeting. It is only known that the peace plan they plan to discuss will not be announced immediately, but will take at least two weeks.

The US envoy reportedly decided to meet with the Qatari prime minister after US President Donald Trump and his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke by phone a few days earlier. According to the US television channel NBC, the conversation ended "in a shouting match." Trump interrupted and booed Netanyahu after the latter denied starvation in Gaza. "I don't want to hear that the hunger is fake" or that "the children there aren't starving to death," the US president yelled at him. In contrast, the Israeli prime minister's office has denied the incident and asserted that the information broadcast by NBC is "completely false."

Now the White House is trying to secure a new agreement to end the war. Last July, with the mediation of Qatar, the United States, and Egypt, representatives of Israel and Hamas negotiated a 60-day ceasefire and the release of the Israeli hostages in Doha. But it never materialized.

According to the Gaza Strip's health ministry, a total of 198 people have died as a result of hunger and malnutrition, 96 of whom were children. "It is unacceptable that people are dying and being injured while trying to feed their families," the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which always stands out for its impartiality and neutrality, denounced in a statement. ICRC medical teams have treated 4,500 gunshot wounds since May 27 at a field hospital in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. Most were trying to get food, according to ICRC sources.