Palestine Action (Proscribed) Hunger Stikers in UK Prisons:
Qesser Zuhrah, Amu Gib, Heba Muraisi, Jon Cink, Teuta Hoxha, Kamran Ahmed, Muhammad Umer Khalid and Lewie Chiaramello
Blogger’s Note: There are three articles on this page – two from Palestinian organisations operating out of the UK – and one from China (detailing US involvement and criminality in Palestine). Yes – it is a mixed-bag – but this situation is complex, involved, and international in nature. The UK and EU unquestionably support the US policy of empowerment and facilitation of Israeli-initiated “genocide” in Gaza – whilst continuously justifying Zionist War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity on the (false grounds) that the Jewish people were victims of Nazi Germany oppression during the 1930s and 1940s. This is a policy termed “false equivalency” – often used by the far-right to justify its ongoing policies of hate and aggression (two unrelated subjects are falsely assumed to be related to justify an ongoing discriminatory policy). This should be no surprise as the UN declared “Zionism” to be a form of “White Supremacy” (practiced by middle-class White Jews) during a 1975 Resolution vote at the UN. Today, the Zionists, building on this Western support, has successfully campaigned to to conflate legitimate anti-Zionism (anti-fascism) with illegitimate anti-Semitism (anti-Jewish racism). The two subjects are not the same and are as different as chalk and cheese. The UK Labour government are arresting, imprisoning, abusing, trying, and sentencing highly-principled individuals who are standing-up to Israeli Zionism (in an attempt to protect Palestinians from it) – and treating these individuals as if they have been committing “anti-Semitic” crimes. In reality, these oppressed individuals protect innocents Jews from racism just as they protect Palestinians from Zionist racism. This is why a number of these anti-Zionist campaigers now languishing in UK prisons are engaging in ongoing hunger-striking. The UK Labour Party is suppressing news of these strikes and the mainstream press has barely covered the story. It is only as these brave individuals are approaching death that one or two media outlets – aware that the UN, ICC, and ICJ have accused Israel of committing “Genocide” – have broken ranks and defied the conspiracy of silence. Obviously, these outlets are concerned that should Israel and the US be held responsible for these crimes – the UK Labour government (and its lacky media) might be next! ACW (22.12.2025)
Teuta Hoxha
Prison: HMP Peterborough
Prisoner number: A9261FE
On remand since: November 19th 2024
Trial date: April 2026
T was arrested in the dawn raids against Palestine activists on 19th November 2024 by counter-terrorism police in the third wave of Filton arrests on allegations of being connected to the Filton action, which saw over £1 million in damage caused to Elbit’s research centre for Israeli weapons making her one of the Filton 24. Although the terror charges were dropped, she has been held in remand ever since and has spent her 29th birthday behind bars.
T previously blockaded the entrance of Elbit’s Bristol HQ, forcing the Israeli weapons maker to close, and soon after, she also disrupted Elbit-investor BNY Mellon’s office in Manchester. She was moved from HMP Bronzefield on the day MPs voted to proscribe Palestine Action.
On 11 August 2025, T went on hunger strike in protest of the prison’s violations of her fundamental rights such as the cancellation of her recreational and educational activities, the withholding of her mail, and her removal from a job in the prison library. She also reported mistreatment by guards, who constantly referred to her as a terrorist. She has both been called a terrorist by prison staff and told she belongs to a terrorist group, continuously being subject to retrospective punishment after the proscription of Palestine Action before, during and after her hunger strike which she ended in victory after 28 days of resistance. During T’s hunger strike, she was joined by two political prisoners in the US, Casey Goonan and Mohammed Malik in a stunning action of fearless and humbling solidarity transcending man-made imaginary borders.
In her reflections on her hunger strike, she cites the Islamic proverb, “Our mercy and compassion for each other is like that of a body. When any limb aches, the whole body reels with sleeplessness and fever,” contemplating that, “…it is with this view we accept that global solidarity movements constitute one body. What affects one affects us all. Therefore in the same vein we say there is no freedom until Palestine is free.”
December 17, 2025
London, 17th December – As Palestine Action prisoners enter a life-threatening phase of their hunger strike, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) calls for the immediate convening of a meeting between the Justice Secretary and the defendants’ legal representatives. Repeated, time-critical requests for such a meeting have been refused by the Secretary of State and his ministerial team.
Four of the prisoners have been held on remand for over a year, far beyond the legal Custody Time Limit of 182 days.
Of eight initial hunger strikers, six are still continuing their strike. The eight protestors (Qesser Zuhrah, Amu Gib, Heba Muraisi, Jon Cink, Teuta Hoxha, Kamran Ahmed, Muhammad Umer Khalid and Lewie Chiaramello) are awaiting trial for alleged offences at Elbit Systems in Bristol and the RAF’s Brize Norton base, both of which took place prior to the proscription of Palestine Action
Despite facing charges where bail is usually granted – even in cases far more serious, such as rape or weapons offences – these defendants remain in custody. Their continued detention appears designed to restrict their ability to access legal protections.
Lawyers representing the prisoners have said their clients are likely to die without immediate intervention, yet Justice Secretary David Lammy has refused to meet with their legal teams. Until recently, he claimed to have no knowledge of the strike at all.
It is striking that the UK’s largest hunger strike since 1981 has been all but ignored by mainstream media until it is perhaps too late. MPs in the Commons were heard laughing yesterday after Justice Minister Jake Richards dismissed Jeremy Corbyn’s request for a meeting on the situation with a flat ‘no.’ The response exposes both the Government’s indifference and the wider political establishment’s contempt for those risking their lives to be heard.
The UK government is actively enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Its attempts to silence dissenters and those peacefully calling for an end to Israel’s war crimes are a revival of Thatcher-era tactics used to censor anyone demanding accountability from the British state.
Whilst the UK government has already shown that it is willing to pursue policies that support Israel in its killing of Palestinians, it is clear now that the Government is also ambivalent at best towards letting people die in protest on its own soil. By remaining complicit in Israel’s war crimes and the ongoing genocide, and by silencing those exposing this complicity, the state’s actions defy comprehension.
Mutahir Ahmed, ICJP’s Head of Legal, said:
“The UK government’s repeated rejection of requests for dialogue with the defendants’ legal team demonstrates a troubling disregard for due process and human life. Every day of delay heightens the risk to those striking for justice in Palestine and civil liberties at home. The government must act now to uphold the fair administration of justice and ensure that those risking their lives are heard without further delay.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
- ICJP is a legal organisation based in London, working to uphold international law and defend the rights of Palestinians.
- For more information or for media inquiries, please contact the ICJP news desk at press@icjpalestine.com.
Image: Kwh1050 via Wikimedia Commons
GAZA, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) — By the end of 2025, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip appeared to be holding, a development many credited to the United States. Yet a closer look at the whole year and the two-year war reveals a different reality.
From unsettling remarks about taking over Gaza to widely criticized arms supplies to Israel, observers say, Washington was complicit in prolonging the war and deepening the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
WAR COULD HAVE BEEN SHORTER
While possessing significant leverage to influence the course of the war, Washington did not exercise that power, analysts have pointed out, noting that through bias and indulgence, it instead allowed the fighting to drag on.
“Throughout 2024 and 2025, the USA has continued to support Israel militarily through arms supplies and deployments of its own forces. Arms deliveries in 2024 included missiles, bombs and armoured personnel carriers,” shows a study published by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in October.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration accelerated this support. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in March that “Since taking office, the Trump Administration has approved nearly 12 billion U.S. dollars in major FMS (foreign military sales) sales to Israel.”
Gazans bore the cost. Yahya Abu Harbeid, a 37-year-old from the town of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, lost his brother and his sister’s husband during a bombing. “The United States supplied Israel with weapons during the war,” and this support “translated into direct fire on civilians,” he told Xinhua.
The United States also repeatedly vetoed UN Security Council draft resolutions demanding a Gaza ceasefire, and sanctioned International Criminal Court staff members investigating Israel. As the war faced a global backlash, these moves exposed Washington’s isolation on the world stage.
In interviews with Xinhua, Palestinian analysts said that U.S. support for Israel during the war went beyond the traditional framework of a political alliance, enabling Israel to prolong the conflict and inflict massive losses on Palestinians.
“Washington provides Israel with political, diplomatic, and military support, along with grants, technical assistance, and logistical support,” said Mustafa Ibrahim, a Gaza-based political analyst. “American weapons sales have directly fuelled the conflict, enabling large-scale destruction and civilian casualties.”
To Eyal Zisser, vice rector at Tel Aviv University, Israel’s dependence on the United States has only deepened. “Israel’s strategic freedom of action, diplomatic backing, and military operations are closely tied to American support, more so than at any previous point,” said the Middle Eastern affairs expert.
SUFFERING COULD HAVE BEEN LESS
During the Gaza war, Gazans were forced to flee their homes en masse, many repeatedly. Before the latest ceasefire, the displacement crisis had reached catastrophic levels.
When Trump said in February that the United States would take over the Gaza Strip and repeated that claim in May, not just the Gazans were startled. Countries in and outside the Middle East strongly rejected this forced displacement plan.
“Such statements, though framed as planning or reconstruction proposals, amount to propaganda and further threaten Palestinians. (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu exploited these suggestions to justify displacement, while Palestinians face limited options for resettlement,” Ibrahim said.
“This underscores how U.S.-endorsed initiatives can inadvertently — or deliberately — facilitate dispossession and undermine Palestinian rights,” Ibrahim added.
The humanitarian damage did not stop there. Since May, despite widespread opposition, a U.S.-backed mechanism to distribute humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip came into operation, sidelining the long-standing UN aid distribution network.
Soon Gazans found the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to be a “death trap.” Thousands were killed or injured while seeking aid this year, many near GHF sites. This drew sustained criticism from the international community.
“The flawed distribution system (GHF) is not designed to address the humanitarian crisis. It’s serving military and political objectives. It’s cruel as it takes more lives than it saves lives,” Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, said on social media in July.
Akram Atallah, a Gaza-based political analyst, told Xinhua that Washington’s alignment of humanitarian efforts with Israeli political interests suggested “that U.S. intentions are less about impartial aid and more about advancing strategic objectives that support Israel.”
AMERICA FIRST: HEGEMONY OVER JUSTICE
Gaza’s story, analysts say, reflects the broader U.S. pattern in the Middle East: alliance over justice, and self-interest over other countries’ sovereignty and legitimate rights.
In the West Bank, Israeli policy continues with U.S. backing. “The ceasefire agreement applies exclusively to Gaza and does not alter Israel’s long-standing approach in the West Bank, which it maintains despite international criticism. For Israel, American political and diplomatic support remains the decisive factor overriding external opposition,” Zisser said.
Iran offers another stark example. In June, U.S. forces bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities, joining Israeli strikes that triggered a 12-day conflict, even as Washington and Tehran had been conducting indirect talks on Iran’s nuclear programme.
“U.S. pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, combined with unwavering support for Israeli military actions, demonstrates a broader pattern of coercion and hegemony,” noted Ibrahim. “This includes threats, sanctions, and strategic manoeuvring that prioritize American and Israeli interests while disregarding regional sovereignty or civilian safety.”
In fact, the Middle East is no stranger to and has long been a victim of such U.S. schemes. “U.S. policies, including sanctions and military interventions, have historically caused widespread suffering in the Middle East,” Atallah said.
“Washington’s pursuit of strategic interests — supporting allies, maintaining regional dominance, and controlling resources — has often prioritized political objectives over human welfare,” Atallah added. “Across the region, these policies have deepened economic crises, human suffering, and political instability.”
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 
