By Rima Najjar
The flotilla, though intercepted, continues to sail: in memory, in mobilization, and in the refusal to be silenced
Author’s Note
This essay traces the October 2025 mobilizations — the mass demonstrations that erupted and surged across Madrid, Rome, Berlin, Paris, and London following Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla and Minister Ben Gvir’s public accusation of the activists involved as “terrorists.” Each city’s response builds on its own history of pro-Palestine and anti-zionist activism: migrant-led coalitions, legal defense campaigns, and cultural resistance. Though slow, these inroads have become sustained. The mobilizations mark a shift from symbolic protest to strategic refusal, where memory and infrastructure confront Zionism as state doctrine.
I. Introduction
“The moment Israel definitively lost Europe was when Minister Ben Gvir stood before the detained passengers of the Flotilla and branded them ‘terrorists.’ Europe erupted in a rage from which there is no return.”
— Sani Meo, Facebook
The weekend of October 4, 2025, marked a political rupture. In response to Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla — a humanitarian convoy bound for Gaza — tens of thousands mobilized across Europe in a coordinated wave of outrage. The detention of activists from 44 countries in international waters was a catalyst, but it was Israeli Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s public accusation that the passengers were “terrorists” that detonated long-simmering tensions. However, to dismiss these demonstrations as mere reactions to a single event would be to misunderstand them entirely. They represented the latest, most potent articulation of a deep and enduring infrastructure of resistance: a strategic indictment built on years of organizing against Israeli apartheid, Zionist militarism, and the global normalization of Jewish supremacy as state doctrine.
From Madrid to Marseille, Berlin to Birmingham, these mobilizations affirmed a collective commitment not only to Palestinian liberation but also to confronting a central contradiction in European politics: governments that symbolically condemn civilian casualties abroad simultaneously criminalize meaningful solidarity at home. This bifurcation is structural, designed to ensure that support for Palestine remains a permissible symbol but never becomes a threat to trade, arms, or diplomatic alignment.
This activist foothold, evident in the major cities of Madrid, Paris, Berlin, London, Amsterdam, and Rome, did not emerge overnight. It is the product of decades of groundwork, rooted in migrant solidarity networks, anti-colonial movements, and leftist student organizing. Through early opposition to the Oslo Accords, mass protests during the 2008–2009 Gaza War, and the persistent work of community centers, legal defense networks, and boycott campaigns, these movements have chipped away at the normalization of Israeli impunity. What appeared to be a sudden awakening was, in fact, a culmination — the moment when years of testimony, memory, and strategic refusal coalesced into a visible rupture.
The stark silence in the United States that same weekend, despite the presence of American citizens on the flotilla, underscores the precarity of this kind of dissent and throws Europe’s assertive response into sharper relief. In the face of intense repression and criminalization, European pro-Palestine and anti-Zionist activism is gaining ground not as a fleeting spectacle, but as a resilient political infrastructure. The ground is shifting. The detained flotilla has become a node of transnational testimony, and the archive of resistance is expanding.
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II. Spain
The weekend of Oct 4, 2025: Over 70,000 people marched in Barcelona, with parallel actions erupting in Madrid and Valencia. The scale and coordination of these demonstrations reflect a long-standing tradition of pro-Palestine activism in Spain, rooted in the country’s post-Franco democratic transition.
The mobilizations did not emerge from a vacuum. They are the latest expression of a decades-long infrastructure of solidarity, built through student coalitions, migrant-led organizing, and postcolonial memory work. From the anti-Iraq War protests of 2003 to the cultural boycotts of Israeli institutions in the 2010s, Spanish cities have served as key nodes in the European pro-Palestine landscape. Barcelona’s municipal government, for instance, suspended institutional ties with Israel in 2023, citing apartheid conditions — a move shaped by years of pressure from local BDS chapters and migrant coalitions. Madrid’s activist networks have long foregrounded the intersection of Palestinian liberation with anti-fascist and anti-austerity struggles, linking the siege of Gaza to the carceral logics of Spain’s own border regime.
The presence of Spanish parliamentarians aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla was not anomalous — it was the result of sustained lobbying, cultural work, and testimonial amplification. Activists like Jaldía Abubakra — who would later join a segment of the Global Sumud Flotilla’s journey — have not only resisted criminalization but have helped shape the language of solidarity itself, insisting on the right to name zionism as a structure of violence and to treat Palestine not as a humanitarian crisis but as a political cause. The demonstrations of October 4, 2025 — massive, coordinated, and defiant — are testament to this slow, strategic buildup. They mark not just a rupture, but a reckoning: the moment when symbolic solidarity gave way to infrastructural refusal.
Yet these ethical stances are routinely contradicted by state practice. Repression of antizionist and pro-Palestine activism is not incidental; it is structural. In 2024, Palestinian activist Jaldía Abubakra and organizer Miriam Ojeda were summoned before Spain’s National Court after the far-right party VOX accused them of “glorifying terrorism” for statements made during a solidarity conference in the Spanish Congress. While Ojeda’s case was dismissed, Abubakra remains under investigation — a move widely condemned as lawfare, designed to chill dissent and isolate Palestinian voices.
The flotilla, carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, included 47 Spanish passengers, among them doctors, journalists, and members of parliament. When Israeli forces intercepted the vessel in international waters and detained the passengers, outrage erupted across Spain. Civil society groups, including Solidaridad con Palestina and Red Solidaria contra la Ocupación de Palestina, demanded diplomatic accountability, while opposition parties called for sanctions. The incident catalyzed renewed mobilization, with protesters citing the flotilla’s seizure as emblematic of both Israeli impunity and Spanish governmental passivity.
On October 4, 2025, Spanish police responded to mass mobilizations in Barcelona and Madrid by deploying riot units and detaining several organizers from Solidaridad con Palestina. The Interior Ministry later named the group in a press release, accusing it of “inciting unrest” — a rhetorical maneuver that echoes the language used to criminalize Abubakra and others. These actions are enabled by Spain’s still-active “Gag Law” (Ley Mordaza), which grants police broad powers to penalize protest and restrict the dissemination of images of law enforcement.
In this context, the criminalization of activists like Abubakra signals more than censorship; it marks a judicial turn toward political disciplining, where solidarity is tolerated only when it is symbolic, and punished when it is strategic. Spain’s dual posture — ethical abroad, punitive at home — reveals the limits of European liberalism when confronted with sustained, intersectional resistance.
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III. Italy
On the same weekend, Italy witnessed one of the largest coordinated pro-Palestine mobilizations in its recent history, with over two million people participating in strikes and demonstrations across more than 100 cities — from Palermo to Turin, Milan to Rome. The protests, organized under the banner Blocchiamo tutto (“Let’s block everything”), were catalyzed by Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which included 47 Italian activists and four opposition parliamentarians. The flotilla, carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, was boarded in international waters by Israeli forces; the Italians were detained and later deported, prompting widespread outrage. In response, dockworkers shut down ports in Livorno, Genoa, Trieste, and Venice, echoing historic refusals to load arms for Israel in 2014. Highways were blocked near Pisa, Bologna, and Milan, and over 80,000 marched through Milan alone, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Free Palestine, Stop the War Machine.”
Despite the scale of dissent, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni dismissed the mobilizations as opportunistic, suggesting strikers were exploiting the moment for a “long weekend.” Her government has refused to recognize Palestinian statehood unless Hamas is excluded from governance and Israeli hostages are released — a conditional stance that contrasts sharply with the unconditional recognition adopted by Spain, Ireland, and other EU states. Meloni’s coalition partner, Matteo Salvini, denounced the strike as “illegal chaos” and called for punitive measures against unions. Yet the protests have forced a reckoning: polling shows broad public support for the flotilla activists, and EU officials suggest that mounting domestic pressure could push Italy to endorse trade sanctions against Israel over human rights violations.
This contradiction — between public solidarity and governmental alignment with Israel — has deep historical roots. Italy’s pro-Palestine activism emerged from post-1968 leftist networks, labor unions, and anti-imperialist brigades that hosted PLO representatives and sent medical teams to Lebanon and Gaza. Today, groups like Assopace Palestina, Rete dei Comunisti, and the Palestinian Student Movement continue that legacy, often facing repression. In 2023, Sapienza University students were violently dispersed for protesting an Israeli ambassador’s visit; in 2024, the Ministry of Interior investigated leftist organizations for “subversive propaganda.” The criminalization of dockworker unions in 2025 — accused of obstructing national infrastructure — marks a securitization of labor solidarity.
Amid this landscape, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese remains a pivotal figure. An Italian jurist and international law expert, Albanese has consistently condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as violations of international law and apartheid. Her reports have been cited by Italian activists and unions to legitimize calls for sanctions and boycott. Though Meloni’s government has distanced itself from Albanese’s findings, her voice continues to galvanize civil society. In recent weeks, banners reading “Albanese is right” have appeared at protests, and her work has been featured in teach-ins across Italian universities.
Italy’s pro-Palestine mobilizations this weekend did not erupt spontaneously — they are the culmination of decades of infrastructural resistance. From the post-1968 brigades to the dockworker militancy of 2014, Italian solidarity has long operated at the intersection of labor, law, and internationalism. The mobilizations of October 2025 — massive, militant, and multisectoral — mark a strategic escalation. They are not merely symbolic; they are infrastructural refusals that disrupt ports, highways, and the rhetorical monopoly of the state. Italy’s rupture, like Spain’s, is not a break from history — it is its continuation.
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IV. France
This same weekend, tens of thousands across France mobilized in solidarity with Palestine, with major demonstrations in Paris, Marseille, Lyon, and Toulouse. In Paris, over 60,000 gathered at Place de la République, where chants of “Palestine vivra, Palestine vaincra” echoed through the square. The mobilizations were catalyzed in part by Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which included 38 French passengers — among them doctors, journalists, and members of the Union Juive Française pour la Paix (UJFP). The flotilla’s seizure in international waters and the detention of French nationals sparked outrage: opposition parties demanded diplomatic accountability, and civil society groups accused the Macron government of “complicity through silence.” Activist Olivia Zémor, president of CAPJPO-EuroPalestine, who helped coordinate the French delegation, called the incident “a test of France’s moral sovereignty.”
France’s pro-Palestine activism is deeply rooted in postcolonial and anti-racist organizing. Since the 1970s, groups like Comité Palestine, UJFP, and Collectif 69 have foregrounded testimonial advocacy, linking Palestinian liberation to struggles against French imperialism and police violence. In 2009, France became one of the first European countries to criminalize BDS activism, with courts prosecuting activists under anti-discrimination laws. This repression intensified in 2020, when Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin attempted to ban pro-Palestine demonstrations following Israel’s annexation threats. In 2023, student organizers at Sciences Po Paris faced disciplinary hearings for hosting teach-ins on zionism and settler colonialism. And in 2024, the government dissolved Collectif Palestine Vaincra, citing “incitement to hatred” — a move condemned by Amnesty International as politically motivated.
Despite this repressive climate, French activists continue to force institutional rupture. In 2025, the city councils of Saint-Denis, Ivry-sur-Seine, and Montreuil passed resolutions declaring themselves “apartheid-free zones,” committing to boycott companies complicit in Israeli occupation. The Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), France’s largest labor union, endorsed the Global Sumud Flotilla and called for an arms embargo. Cultural institutions like the Institut du Monde Arabe have hosted Palestinian artists and filmmakers censored elsewhere in Europe, while student assemblies at the University of Grenoble and Toulouse have voted to sever academic ties with Israeli institutions.
France’s contradiction is stark: while President Emmanuel Macron has condemned Israeli strikes on civilian infrastructure and called for humanitarian access to Gaza, his government continues to criminalize antizionist speech and suppress mobilization. This bifurcation — ethical abroad, punitive at home — reflects a broader tension between France’s republican universalism and its colonial legacy.
France’s mobilizations on this weekend in October are not an anomaly — they are the latest expression of a long and defiant trajectory of pro-Palestine activism. From the migrant-led coalitions of the 1970s to the post-Charlie Hebdo anti-racist alliances, French solidarity with Palestine has been forged in the crucible of postcolonial reckoning and urban resistance. The mobilizations of October 2025 are not reactive — they are the culmination of years of groundwork, where testimony, memory, and refusal have coalesced into rupture.
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V. United Kingdom
This same weekend, tens of thousands across the UK mobilized in solidarity with Palestine, with major demonstrations in London, Manchester, Glasgow, and Birmingham. In London, over 100,000 gathered in Trafalgar Square and along Whitehall, where chants of “From the river to the sea” were met with heavy police presence and surveillance drones. The mobilizations were intensified by Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which included 29 British passengers — among them doctors, trade unionists, and members of Parliament. The flotilla’s seizure in international waters and the detention of British nationals sparked outrage: Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Friends of Al-Aqsa, and Jewish Voice for Labour issued joint statements demanding diplomatic action, while Labour MPs like Zarah Sultana and Apsana Begum condemned the government’s silence. The Foreign Office’s tepid response — expressing “concern” but refusing to censure Israel — was widely criticized as a betrayal of British citizens and international law.
The UK’s pro-Palestine activism is rooted in decades of anti-imperialist and anti-racist organizing. From the 1982 protests against Israel’s invasion of Lebanon to the 2009 mobilizations during Operation Cast Lead, British civil society has consistently foregrounded Palestinian testimony. Groups like PSC, Stop the War Coalition, and War on Want have built enduring coalitions across labor, student, and faith communities. In 2014, the National Union of Students endorsed BDS, and in 2021, the University and College Union (UCU) reaffirmed its support for academic boycott. Yet repression has escalated: in 2023, the UK government passed the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill, designed to ban public institutions from boycotting Israeli goods — a move condemned by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as an attack on ethical procurement.
In 2024, police arrested student organizers at SOAS and the University of Manchester for “unauthorized protest,” and the Charity Commission launched investigations into Muslim-led organizations accused of “political bias.” The government’s Prevent strategy — nominally aimed at countering extremism — has been used to surveil and discipline pro-Palestine educators and students, with whistleblowers revealing that schoolchildren were questioned for wearing keffiyehs or expressing solidarity online.
Despite this repressive apparatus, UK activists continue to achieve tangible victories. In 2025, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) passed a resolution calling for an arms embargo on Israel and endorsing the Global Sumud Flotilla. Local councils in Tower Hamlets, Lambeth, and Glasgow passed motions condemning Israeli apartheid and committing to divestment. Cultural institutions like the Palestine Film Festival and Shubbak have foregrounded censored voices, while grassroots campaigns have pressured retailers to drop contracts with companies complicit in settlement infrastructure.
The UK’s contradiction is sharp: while Foreign Secretary David Lammy has condemned civilian casualties in Gaza and called for humanitarian access, his government continues to criminalize antizionist speech and suppress mobilization. This bifurcation — ethical abroad, punitive at home — mirrors the colonial logic that underpins British foreign policy: solidarity is permitted only when it is symbolic, and punished when it is strategic.
Yet activists persist. By foregrounding testimony, obstructing complicity, and refusing erasure, they are not merely protesting — they are reconfiguring Britain’s political terrain.
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VI. Germany
This same weekend, tens of thousands across Germany mobilized in solidarity with Palestine, with major demonstrations in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Cologne. In Berlin, over 50,000 gathered at Alexander Platz, where chants of “Freiheit für Palästina” and “zionismus ist kein Schutzschild” echoed through the square. The mobilizations were catalyzed by Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which included 26 German passengers — among them doctors, legal scholars, and members of Jewish Bund and Palästina Spricht. The flotilla’s seizure in international waters and the detention of German nationals sparked outrage: Die Linke and members of the Green Party demanded diplomatic accountability, while civil society groups accused the Scholz government of “moral cowardice.” Jewish Bund organizer Judith Bernstein, who helped coordinate the German delegation, called the incident “a test of Germany’s post-Holocaust ethics.”
Germany’s pro-Palestine activism is shaped by a complex terrain of memory, repression, and testimonial resistance. Since the 1970s, migrant-led coalitions — particularly from Turkish, Arab, and Kurdish communities — have foregrounded Palestine as a site of anti-imperialist struggle. Groups like Palästina Spricht, Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden, and BIPoC Berlin have built infrastructures of resistance through teach-ins, cultural festivals, and archival initiatives. Yet repression has intensified: in 2020, Berlin police banned Nakba Day demonstrations, citing “security concerns.” In 2023, the Bundestag reaffirmed its 2019 resolution equating BDS with antisemitism, despite widespread criticism from Jewish and human rights organizations. In 2024, Palestinian-German journalist Hebh Jamal was barred from speaking at a university panel, and in 2025, the Interior Ministry launched investigations into migrant-led organizations accused of “delegitimizing Israel.”
Germany’s repression of Palestinian solidarity activism has particularly targeted figures associated with Samidoun, a prisoner solidarity network banned in Germany for alleged ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Among the most emblematic cases is that of Charlotte Kates, an American lawyer and international coordinator of Samidoun, and Khaled Barakat, a Palestinian writer and political organizer. Both have been barred from entering Germany and the broader European Union due to their affiliations and public statements.
Despite this repressive climate, German activists continue to force institutional rupture. In 2025, the city councils of Neukölln and Kreuzberg passed resolutions condemning Israeli apartheid and committing to boycott companies complicit in settlement infrastructure. Jewish Bund and Jüdische Stimme have foregrounded post-Holocaust ethics to challenge the state’s weaponization of memory, insisting that “Never Again” must include Palestinians. Cultural institutions like Oyoun and the Maxim Gorki Theater have hosted censored Palestinian voices, while archival projects like the Nakba Archive Berlin have documented intergenerational testimony from displaced families. Student assemblies at Humboldt and Freie Universität have voted to sever academic ties with Israeli institutions, despite administrative pushback.
Germany’s contradiction is acute: while Chancellor Olaf Scholz has condemned civilian casualties in Gaza and called for humanitarian access, his government continues to criminalize antizionist speech and suppress mobilization. This bifurcation — ethical abroad, punitive at home — is rooted in Germany’s post-Holocaust identity politics, where support for Israel is treated as moral obligation, and Palestinian solidarity as historical transgression. In this context, the criminalization of groups like Palästina Spricht and the silence surrounding the flotilla’s seizure signal a state logic that tolerates solidarity only when it is abstract, and punishes it when it is embodied.
Yet activists persist.
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VII. The Netherlands
On October 4, Amsterdam erupted — not in chaos, but in clarity. An estimated 250,000 demonstrators flooded Museumplein and its surrounding streets, forming a crimson tide of dissent against the Dutch government’s complicity in Israeli violence. Dressed in red to mark the “red line” they say has been crossed, protesters carried placards reading “No peace without justice,” “Your silence is violence,” and “Ashamed of the government.” The chants — “Free Palestine,” “Stop the genocide,” — echoed through PC Hooftstraat, where luxury storefronts stood in mute contrast to the moral urgency outside.
This was the third “Red Line” protest in six months, following earlier mass mobilizations in The Hague. But October 4 marked a turning point: not just in scale, but in tone. Families with children, elders in red scarves, students with hand-painted signs — all converged to demand rupture. The Netherlands, long a staunch supporter of Israel, now faced internal fracture. Jewish groups joined the protest, rejecting the conflation of Zionism with Jewish identity. Protesters invoked the Gaza Sumud Flotilla, intercepted days earlier, and demanded the release of Dutch detainees held in Israel’s Ketziot Prison.
The timing was strategic. Less than four weeks before national elections, the crowd pressed for policy — not platitudes. Foreign Minister David van Weel, under pressure from both the Supreme Court and public opinion, signaled a shift: travel bans on far-right Israeli ministers, a proposed halt to settlement-produced imports, and hesitation over F-35 fighter jet parts. But the demonstrators were not appeased. As one protester declared, “We’re here because our government refuses to draw a red line. So we’ll draw it for them.”
The Netherlands did not simply host a protest. It staged a reckoning.
The Netherlands has long styled itself as a bastion of liberal democracy and resistance. Its underground press and partisan networks during World War II are held up as emblems of moral courage. The Dutch resistance sheltered Jews, sabotaged Nazi infrastructure, and defied occupation. But this legacy, invoked often in national mythmaking, has not extended to Palestine.
Since 1948, successive Dutch governments have offered near-unconditional support to Israel — militarily, diplomatically, and economically. The Hague, home to the International Criminal Court, has paradoxically shielded Israeli officials from prosecution while prosecuting Palestinian resistance as terrorism. Dutch arms exports have included components for Israeli drones and F-35 fighter jets used in Gaza. In 2021, the Netherlands cut funding to Palestinian NGOs based on unsubstantiated Israeli claims of “terrorist ties” — a move later condemned by EU legal experts.
Dutch universities have partnered with Israeli institutions involved in settlement expansion and surveillance technologies. Protesters demanding divestment have faced disciplinary action, police violence, and media vilification. In 2023, the University of Amsterdam suspended students for staging a sit-in against Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer. The repression was swift, but the resistance persisted.
What October 4 revealed is not a rupture from Dutch history, but a confrontation with its contradictions. The same country that celebrates Anne Frank has criminalized Palestinian solidarity. The same government that funds Holocaust education has refused to name the Nakba. The crowd on Museumplein did not forget this. They carried signs that read “From Amsterdam to Gaza: Never Again Means Now.”
The Netherlands is not neutral. It is a site of contestation—between myth and memory, complicity and clarity. And on October 4, the crowd chose clarity. The demonstration was organized by a coalition of groups including The Rights Forum, DocP (Dutch Coalition for Palestine), Palestine House, Students for Justice in Palestine NL, and Jewish Voice for Peace Netherlands. Their coordination was not just logistical—it was ideological. They refused euphemism, rejected false equivalence, and demanded rupture. As their joint statement declared: “We do not protest for balance. We protest for liberation.”
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VIII. Synthesis: From Local Refusals to Transnational Testimony
The mobilizations of October 4, 2025 are not isolated eruptions — they are coordinated refusals, rooted in decades of infrastructural resistance. From Barcelona’s migrant coalitions to Milan’s dockworker strikes, Paris’s municipal boycotts to Berlin’s archival insurgencies, London’s union-led divestments to Rome’s legal indictments, each city carries its own historical burdens and strategic capacities. And yet, a shared grammar emerges: solidarity that refuses to be symbolic, testimony that refuses erasure, and mobilization that refuses to be criminalized.
The Global Sumud Flotilla’s interception has become a flashpoint, its passengers a chorus of transnational indictment. The flotilla did not merely carry aid; it carried memory, strategy, and refusal. Its seizure in international waters exposed the impunity of Israeli militarism and the complicity of European governments. But it also activated a network of resistance that had been building quietly, persistently, across borders and generations.
These demonstrations were not reactive — they were the latest articulation of a global movement that treats Palestine not as a humanitarian crisis but as a political cause. They foreground the right to name zionism as a structure of violence, to confront Jewish supremacy as state doctrine, and to demand Palestinian liberation not as charity but as justice. They expose the bifurcation of liberal democracies: ethical abroad, punitive at home. And they insist that solidarity must be infrastructural — not permitted when abstract, but defended when embodied.
Across Europe, activists are redrawing the ethical map. They are building testimonial archives, disrupting trade routes, severing institutional ties, and foregrounding censored voices. They are not merely protesting, they are reconfiguring the terrain of possibility. The flotilla, though intercepted, continues to sail: in memory, in mobilization, and in the refusal to be silenced.
Note: First published in Medium
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Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa.
6 October 2025
Source: countercurrents.org