Campaigners for a free Palestine, alarmed by the minimal coverage of Britain’s imprisoned hunger strikers, have written to journalists and content creators across the country asking them to publish something to raise awareness of the desperate situation. One actionist who told us they were involved with Palestine Action before their proscription by the government reached out to Urban Dandy anonymously and asked us to publish their words:

‘Eight names, one hunger strike. The names are:

Quesser Zuhrah

Amu Gibb

Heba Muraisi

Jon Clink

T Hoxa

Kamran Ahmed

Lewis Chiaramello (who is diabetic and on a partial hunger strike) and

Muhammad Umer Khalid.

But you probably haven’t heard of any of them. The silence has been deafening, and for those of us following the persecution of these brave people, all in their twenties, the silence is unbearable.

The hunger strikes began on 2nd November, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration when our government promised Palestinian land to the Zionist movement. The first prisoner to take this most drastic act of protest is now in a critical state and could die this week. Yet this fact doesn’t seem to be troubling our government. The Deputy PM and Justice Secretary, a strong supporter of Israel, David Lammy, came face to face with the sister of one of the hunger strikers recently. He told her he knew nothing about the strikes and, rather than offering to meet to find out more, told her “I’ve only come here to turn on the Christmas lights.”

But we know Lammy knows because Jeremy Corbyn raised the issue in parliament, following it up with a letter. Lammy refuses to meet with Corbyn, who represents a constituent on hunger strike.

Yesterday, Corbyn posed the question of the government meeting with hunger strikers or their representatives; another ‘No’ from the government to widespread laughter among MPs.

The government has chosen not to communicate with the hunger strikers or their solicitors. Meanwhile campaign groups Free the Filton 24 and Prisoners for Palestine provide daily updates online. On Monday night they held an emergency meeting, to pass on the prisoners’ request for supporters to take direct action and shut down Elbit Systems.

Elbit

Four of the hunger strikers are from the Filton 24, and they are expected to be made to wait over two years for trial, 400% more than the legal limit of 182 days. An attempt to shut down Elbit in Filton triggered the government’s proscription of Palestine Action, raising the stakes on what was already an existential struggle for free speech and the right to protest in Britain.

Why Elbit? It is the biggest arms supplier to Israel. 85% of the genocide’s military drones and land equipment come from Elbit. No Elbit, no genocide, that’s why the prisoners continue to call for that company to be stopped.

The Filton 24 actionists issued five demands to the government:

1. The end of all media censorship of their case so that the public can know what is happening.
2. Immediate bail.
3. The right to a fair trial.
4. De-proscription of Palestine Action.
5. The closure of Elbit Systems.

I never thought the government would agree to the demands, but I did think the government would meet with the prisoners’ legal representatives to seek an end to a very grave situation. Now it is clear that the government won’t meet with them, the correct strategy might be to go direct to Lammy, Starmer and others who have the power to intervene. How many times can they publicly pretend that they don’t know they are overseeing a hunger strike?

Abuse

Instead of legal rights, the hunger striking prisoners are being abused by the system that detains them. Abuse upon abuse. One hunger striker suffering severe symptoms was ignored by prison staff until they were hospitalised. They were handcuffed to security guards throughout their hospital visit until they are returned to their cell without diagnosis and without an explanation to their family or legal representatives. Family members were so concerned that they called 999 and requested an ambulance go to the prison. The prison staff sent the medics away. 

Hospitalised prisoners’ next of kin is recorded as the prison itself, meaning they are denied contact with their families and are dominated physically and psychologically by the state.

Any of us signing up to take direct action against Israel’s war machine know we’ll be arrested. We anticipate bail in a country governed by laws. The reality is very different. One actionist’s mother was arrested and detained for questioning for five days. She is a healthcare professional who was made absent from her job, unable to let anybody know where she was.

The mainstream media isn’t reporting this. Unless you are following these cases closely, it is like it isn’t happening and that is why the hunger strikers urgently need the support of everybody who would usually go on a Palestine demonstration on a Saturday afternoon.

It is extraordinary to say this, but all this pain and lawlessness is because of Elbit Systems. I don’t know what specific power they have over our government, but it is immense, and all the stops are being pulled out to maintain it. Elbit doesn’t have the ability to maintain its own power; it is British state institutions including the media, that have been coopted to preserve Elbit’s role in destroying human life. Including British life. It was Elbit quadcopters, made in Filton, that were used by Israel to chase then shoot to death British aid workers in the Gaza Strip on 23rd April 2024.

Death?

The first of the Irish hunger strikers died on day 46. That was yesterday for some of the Palestine hunger strikers. The damage to their health is already done.

If they die, will their demands die too?

If the government fails to act to prevent the first of their deaths, then is the strike over? What then, when depriving their bodies of sustenance was the only means left available to them to express their disgust at Israel’s genocide?

In public, the Deputy Prime Minister of Britain claimed not to know about a hunger strike he had been made aware of, publicly, in parliament, on the Hansard record. He appears proactively indifferent to the rights of British citizens yet will explode with rage in defence of invented Israeli stories of mass rape and murdered babies. The media stays quiet about this contradiction.

So much doesn’t make sense here. British police shared evidence with Elbit to help them in their legal battles, working with the company, for the company, not for us. In Britain in Winter 2025 you can’t do anything to upset Elbit Systems.

Something very dark and sinister lies behind all this and we don’t yet see the full extent of the network of interests that benefits from the persecution of principled young people. Is Britain itself dying as a sovereign state? Such questions are for another day. Today, we need to demand the end of the torture of the eight hunger strikers:

Quesser Zuhrah

Amu Gibb

Heba Muraisi

Jon Clink

T Hoxa

Kamran Ahmed

Lewis Chiaramello and

Muhammad Umer Khalid.’

 

By Anonymous Actionist