Edinburgh Gaza protest planned over RAF spy flights

The National

2 days ago

The protest, organised by the Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee (GGEC) on July 19, was called in response to a joint report published earlier this week by The National and Declassified UK.
The investigation revealed how Britain's mainstream media have not carried out a single investigation into the extent, impact or legal status of the more than 500 surveillance flights carried out by the RAF over Gaza since December 2023.
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Organisers at the GGEC said they planned to call for "an end to the UK military's involvement" and "complicity" in Gaza as well as an immediate ceasefire and an end to Israel's aid blockade.
The demonstration will start at the Foot of the Mound in Edinburgh at 1pm on Saturday, July 19.
Commenting, Mick Napier, from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, told The National: "The Israelis are planning the end game – the complete ethnic cleansing of the whole of Palestine. This will not exempt Nablus or Bethlehem, twinned with Dundee and Glasgow.
"Israel is escalating its massacres in Gaza – and attacks across the West Bank. Israel is designating Rafah as a concentration zone under the sick label of 'humanitarian corridor'.
Napier added that Israel's aid blockade on Gaza, and the dangerous scenes unfolding at the controversial US and Israeli-backed aid distribution sites – where more than 600 Palestinians have been killed while attempting to seek aid – has meant that "children are starving to death, civilians attempting to access food are being ambushed" and "killed in huge numbers".
Napier also pointed towards the surveillance flights carried out by aircraft based at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, which the UK Government claims are designed to assist with the discovery of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
He said: "The RAF has flown over Gaza at least 518 times during the genocide, providing intelligence to the Israeli military below.
"Despite the scale of the atrocity, UK political and institutional leaders remain largely silent. Labour leader Keir Starmer has expressed support for Israel's actions, and Scottish First Minister John Swinney – along with the vast majority of elite UK institutions – has refused to condemn the violence."
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Napier added that the joint report from The National and Declassified UK had "challenged the mainstream narrative and called attention to UK media complicity-through-silence, leading the GGEC to call the protest on Saturday".
Campaigners said they would call for the following on Saturday:
An immediate ceasefire and the entry of UN food and medical aid;
An end to UK military involvement;
An end to Israel's systematic and targeted campaign of ethnic cleansing;
The Scottish Government to support the South African case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN's top court.
In a post on social media, the Edinburgh GGEC branch called on people to support the protest later this month.
The group said: "Join us for the national demonstration on July 19. Mobilise as many individuals, communities, and organisations as possible, and collaborate across Scotland for a massive turnout of Scottish civil society.
"Now is the time for us to show our governments we oppose genocide and refuse to allow them to continue their complicity without opposition!"