Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire125 and counting …
The vigils continue while terrible events take place in the Middle East
April 2026
Over 30 attended our 125th vigil – an activity which we started with no intention of it lasting so long. But the violence continues, homes are being systematically destroyed in southern Lebanon, much of Gaza has been destroyed and the killings and starvation continue. So there is no let up and people need to be reminded of the terrible events which are taking place in the region and the suffering which is happening. The British government tries to play a double game of saying the right things and condemning the violence, but quietly continues to offer support and weapons to Israel.
Of interest is an article in the Observer newspaper concerning Forensic Architecture which forensically analyses and documents using architectural techniques to document human rights abuses. It was founded by a Jewish man Eyal Weizman who has just written a book Ungrounding: The Architecture of Genocide (Fern Press, pub. available on May 7th).
He has devoted time to the genocide taking place in Gaza and his forensic methods enable a high degree of certainty to the crimes they describe. As usual with those pointing to these crimes, he has suffered de-platforming and the familiar accusations of anti-Semitism. This is especially inappropriate as not only is he a Jew but lost people ‘connected to my family’ as he put it, on October 7th massacre.
It is a long article but a particularly moving passages are:
“FA has also worked at a larger scale, mapping the pattern of expulsions driven by Israeli forces. On 13 October 2023, thousands of leaflets fell on Gaza City, telling residents to move out of what was now a “battlefield”.
“People were given 24 hours to evacuate. For some pro-Israeli commentators, this was a sign of humanity; that the IDF gave people the chance to avoid obliteration. Weizman calls the leaflets “some of the most lethal things to have fallen on Gaza”.
“They were the beginning of a pattern whereby people would be forced into hazardous journeys east and south towards the most barren parts of the [Gaza] strip, to the dunes where they would struggle to survive. Some would be attacked en route.
“Undergrounding tells how Israeli forces also attacked hospitals, schools, universities, mosques and churches. They destroyed orchards, farms, greenhouses, fishing boats, water desalination plants and wells. They polluted the land and the sea. They killed almost all the cattle, sheep, goats and poultry, blocked aid and attacked people who tried to receive it.
“According to Weizman “they engineered famine”. […]
He discusses the defence that Hamas are hiding in these facilities and therefore the destruction is justified. However, he argues that the scale of destruction show an intent that can only be called genocidal.
NGO Monitor the Jerusalem based organisation, says FA “through slick graphic presentations, [it] creates a façade of credibility to mask analyses that are consistently misleading, blatantly biased and based on unverifiable ‘evidence’,” (Israel does not allow independent journalists into Gaza).
May we draw your attention to the local CND website which has a number of posts of interest. Of particular note is the piece Murder Most Foul concerning the death of another journalist Amil Khalil and the practice of ‘double tapping’ that is after a bombing or missile attack waiting for medical staff to appear and mounting a second attack. In this case medical help was denied. The story was covered on Channel 4. At least 226 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7th making it the deadliest conflict in history.
72,344 have died in Gaza and over 172,000 injured, many of whom are children.
No sign of the local MP, Mr John Glen, who is a member of the well-funded Conservative Friends of Israel group and indeed, told the readers of the Salisbury Journal that he was a ‘proud member’ of the group.
Previous posts:
- 125 and counting …
- Opposition to Death Penalty: UK Government’s Position
- Foreign Office to close monitoring unit
- War, war, war
- UN rapporteur sanctioned by the US
Photo: courtesy of Peter Gloyns
#AmilKhalil #ConservativeFriendsOfIsrael #EyalWeizman #genocide #Glen #journalist #Observer #Salisbury #Ungrounding #vigil
Paria sans portefeuille
Snoopy
kriykat
Goualante
Cristina Del Biaggio