Middle East Eye

🎥 Activist group Palestine Action occupied Grid Defence Systems in Buckinghamshire, UK, on Thursday. The defence firm is a military hardware supplier for Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons firm. According to the group, arms components inside Grid Defence Systems were “dismantled,” and shipments destined for Elbit were “completely shattered.” In a statement posted on social media, the group said: “During our previous action at Kent’s Israeli weapons factory, many suppliers were discovered. Unless they cut ties with Elbit, we will shut down each one of them. This is for Gaza.” According to Thames Valley Police, four activists were arrested on suspicion of burglary and criminal damage. 🔴 Live updates: https://www.middleeasteye.net/live/gaza-live-israel-war-hamas-ceasefire-deal-netanyahu?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social_traffic

📰 The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces are among a long list of armed groups in Syria recruiting and using child soldiers, according to a new State Department report. The report said that Syrian government forces, Turkish-backed forces, Islamic State and Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) are among armed groups in Syria using child soldiers. But including the Syrian Democratic Forces in the list is a sharp rebuke of the US's main ally in Syria. 🔗 Read more: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-backed-kurdish-groups-continue-recruit-child-soldiers-report-says?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social_traffic

📰 Have 8 months of Gaza protests changed Britain’s politics? Absolutely, says former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. It’s had an immense effect. In this week’s episode of The Big Picture Podcast, @el.sayyed sits down with the lifelong pro-Palestine advocate to talk about why he decided to stand as an independent, why he’s taking on his former party and what he really thinks of Keir Starmer as Prime Minister. 🔗 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGGlaVm0efk&utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social_traffic

📰 “The continued Israeli genocide in Gaza and the rest of Palestine has far-reaching implications for the world at large, but for the region in particular. We can no longer understand any aspect of the region’s geopolitics or the domestic politics of individual countries in terms that were previously meaningful or even legitimate. The Iranian presidential election is characterised by similar, if not identical, banalities to those we see elsewhere in the world. There can never be any democratic uprising without active and principled solidarity with Palestine and steadfast opposition to the settler-colony and its successive acts of genocide. The pathetic and disgraceful Iranian opposition, manufactured in the US and Europe, has forever failed that test of credibility." ✍️ Opinion by Hamid Dabashi 🔗 https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/iran-elections-gaza-genocide-expat-opposition-death-marked-how?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social_traffic

📰 Private Republican Guard polling shows reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian in the clear lead in Iran’s presidential election, which takes place on Friday. The poll, which is not public but has been seen by Middle East Eye, predicts Pezeshkian taking 37 percent of the vote. That would make him the favourite to win in a runoff against the second-placed candidate. Out of the five candidates running in the election, called after the sudden death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month, Pezeshkian is the only person from the reformist camp. All the others are considered conservatives. 🔗 Read more: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-election-private-republican-guard-polling-shows-pezeshkian-clear-favourite?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social_traffic

🎥 “What are your thoughts on The Muslim Vote?” MEE asked Labour parliamentary candidate Afzal Khan about The Muslim Vote campaign initially endorsing him, then withdrawing support. The campaign, which backs candidates in areas with significant numbers of Muslim voters, reversed its stance, deciding not to endorse candidates from the two major parties. During our interview with Khan, a prominent Muslim member of the UK’s Labour Party and the candidate for Manchester Rusholme, we spoke about the anger and anti-Labour sentiment within the Muslim community and beyond regarding Labour's stance on Gaza. 🔗 Watch the full Real Talk interview on MEE’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbbHihJxc1c&t=1461s&utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social_traffic

📰 Both sides in Sudan’s ongoing war are using starvation as a weapon, a group of independent United Nations experts said on Wednesday. The war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemeti), began on 15 April last year and has left more than 25 million civilians hungry and in urgent need of aid. “Both the SAF and the RSF are using food as a weapon and starving civilians,” the experts, including the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, said on Wednesday. “The extent of hunger and displacement we see in Sudan today is unprecedented.” 🔗 Tap to read more: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sudan-un-experts-say-warring-parties-using-starvation-weapon-war?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social_traffic

📰 The first group of patients to be evacuated from Gaza since Israeli forces closed the Rafah crossing in May has arrived in Egypt, AFP is reporting, citing an Egyptian medical source. The group of twenty-one cancer patients arrived via the Kerem Shalom crossing. They are due to travel to the United Arab Emirates where they will receive treatment, according to the source. According to Gaza's Health Ministry, 25,000 children in Gaza need treatment abroad.

🎥 Israel’s war on Gaza and the situation in Palestine are significant issues for many voters in the upcoming UK general election. Middle East Eye interviewed Jonathan Purcell from the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians to discuss how pivotal and decisive the parties’ policies on Palestine could influence the outcome of the general election in the UK, on 4th July. 🔴 Live Updates: https://www.middleeasteye.net/live/gaza-live-israel-war-hamas-ceasefire-deal-netanyahu?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social_traffic

🎥 “We have nothing in the north. We don’t know what to eat.” Palestinian content creator Abu Naseem expressed his frustration on Monday while he showed how people in northern Gaza are eating bread stuffed with fried bread as they face famine and have nothing else to eat. According to the United Nations’ hunger monitoring system, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), more than 495,000 people across the Gaza Strip are facing “catastrophic food insecurity” in the besieged strip and remain at high risk of famine, as the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza continues into its ninth month and access to aid is restricted.