Ahead of the upcoming International Women’s Rights Week of Action, Women Rising Coalition and Parents For Palestine staged protests in London earlier this week.
Outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), children watched a puppet show, teaching them some of the history of the occupation and oppression of Palestine.
It also reminded us all that arms embargoes are perfectly possible – Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, and Gordon Brown all imposed weapons bans on Israel on the many occasions they defied international law and attacked Palestinians. But David Lammy continues to deny there is any genocide going on in Gaza, and continues to accept cash and hospitality from Israel while refusing to extend the tiny symbolic ban on arms export licences he announced in September.
After the puppetry, children laid teddy bears at the gates of the FCDO with names of children known to have been killed by the Israeli Occupying Forces.
The mothers and children then marched to join a protest by the Women Rising Coalition in Parliament Square, but faced harassment and shoving from police as they crossed Whitehall, while security men at the FCDO unceremoniously kicked the teddy bears away from the entrance.
Opposite Parliament, next to a huge banner – STOP ARMING GENOCIDE – women were holding long ropes with 710 baby vests, marking the number of under-1 year-old children known to have been killed in Gaza according to Ministry of Health figures. The fear is that the death toll will turn out much higher when currently missing and unaccountable babies are added in.
Those baby vests were taken and laid outside the FCDO, while some sang:
“I hear the voice of my ancestors calling,
wake up, wake up child,
wake up, wake up, listen, listen.”
