From London: Families of Gaza martyrs call for immediate ceasefire

4 November 2023

The families of Gaza martyrs in Britain are calling for an immediate ceasefire, stressing the need to provide the necessary protection for children, civilians, health and service workers, and essential facilities such as hospitals and schools.

These urgent calls were articulated to the international community at the press conference organized by a group of Palestinian families of Gaza martyrs in Britain, held yesterday evening on November 3, in central London.

Families of Gaza martyrs submit demands to the British government

In the statement issued by the conference, which was read on behalf of the participants by Maysara Ibrahim, the families condemned the brutal and inhumane policy pursued by the Israeli occupation army by targeting civilians in the Gaza Strip erasing entire families from the civil registry.
He pointed to the deliberate bombing of residential buildings, homes, schools, churches, mosques, and hospitals, in which there were families and children, most of whom were forcibly displaced from their homes in search of safety.

After more than 27 days of intimidation, direct targeting of civilians, and the siege of the Gaza Strip, the number of martyrs reached more than 9,000 Palestinians, 40 percent were children, along with thousands of others still missing under the rubble of their destroyed homes.

The statement condemned the brutal siege policy imposed by the occupation forces on more than two million Palestinians, by cutting off water, food, and medicine supplies to the Gaza Strip, in addition to cutting off electricity, communications, and internet networks, and continuous and indiscriminate bombing of safe residential buildings.

The Palestinian-British families, who attended the conference called on Rishi Sunak’s government to take action for an immediate ceasefire, allow urgent humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, as well as evacuate their families stuck in Gaza to the United Kingdom, and allow the transfer of injured Palestinian children in need of urgent treatment in UK hospitals.

Immediate ceasefire

The press conference was moderated by Ibrahim Khadra; a journalist of BeIN Sports. In his opening speech, he mentioned the brutality of the Israeli occupation as the most brutal we have seen in our entire lives.
He said: Gaza is a small piece of land full of dreams that cling to life and hope, even though it has been suffering from a siege for more than seventeen years.

Khadra recalled the time when an article was published about him in an Arab magazine after he appeared on BBC Arabic as a news broadcaster.

He pointed out that the title of the article was: “What is a son of Gaza doing at the BBC?” and explained to what extent it was surprising to see a person from Gaza find his way to work in a famous media company in London. In other words, he was the one capable of breaking the long siege, as he said.

However, he is distressed today by the current BBC policy; because of its bias and misleading news, as he described. Ibrahim Khadra concluded his speech by saying that the dreams of Gaza children today don’t see the light because they are being murdered and bombed by the bloody occupation.

In the same context, representatives of the families participating in the conference provided vivid and emotional testimonies, including Wafa Shamlakh, Saddam Zaghreb, Khalil Al-Agha, Haitham Al-Sharif, Omar Mufid Makhlalati, in addition to Maysara Ibrahim and Ibrahim Khadra.

It is noteworthy that the “Arabs in the UK” (AUK) platform will continue to display videos that highlight these testimonies in detail on our website and social media platforms.