79,220 civilians dead, after nearly two years of genocide in Gaza this is the official death toll. The real horror is almost certainly much much higher. These are the ‘direct deaths’. It does not include “indirect deaths attributable to the conflict”. In recent conflicts ‘indirect deaths’ have amounted to between three to fifteen times the ‘direct deaths’. As famine sets in in Gaza, we would expect the final figures to be towards the higher side. These final figures for the atrocities in Gaza will be monstrous. 

Across the world, people are outraged by the massacres being committed on a daily basis. If we look at just this past weekend alone, we see over one million people protesting in the streets of Madrid. In London, we see 890 people arrested on a protest, the largest number of demonstrators ever arrested on a single day by the British police. Of those people, 857 are expected to be charged with ‘showing support for a prescribed group’. These are essentially terrorism charges. On the last demonstration of this kind in London, the median age of protestors  was over 60 years old. Grandmother is now in court accused of terrorism. 

Next week, the UN general assembly will meet in New York, and Palestine will be one of the main points of discussion. Despite various western states declaring that they will ‘recognise’ Palestine, we don’t expect that anything will be done to stop the slaughter. Israel is currently in violation of over 30 UN Security Council resolutions including resolution 2728 last year calling for an immediate ceasefire. Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet stated that the resolution had “no operational significance”. While politicians sit in New York discussing children will continue to be murdered. 

For us, change does not come about from the empty words of politicians, but from ordinary people’s actions. We applaud all protests against the genocide currently taking place in Gaza, and as a workers’ organisation we particularly support actions undertaken by workers to throw a spanner into the cogs of the war machine. 

Across southern Europe dock workers have been at the forefront of this struggle. In mid July, workers at the port of Piraeus near Athens refused to transport a shipment of Indian produced steel intended for military use by Israel. Two days later when there was another attempt to bring the same steel into the port under a Chinese flag, workers and local people responded with a massive demonstration of thousands of people to block the cargo. June saw French dock workers at Fos-sur-Mer, near Marseille, refuse to load ammunition belt links used to manufacture machine guns, which were bound for Israel. Following their success, dock workers in both Italy and Greece made public declarations to the effect that they too would refuse to load and unload any and all arms shipments to Israel. 

The most recent call for action has been a statement made by dock workers from Genoa in Italy saying that they will close down the port if a current humanitarian aid convoy sailing to Gaza is stopped. Dockers at the port of Venice have since stated their support for this action. 

In today’s globalised world connections to the war machine have spread across the planet. At the start of the month, it was announced that the Israeli Port Authority had awarded a contract to MTG Dolphin Shiprepair and Shipbuilding in Varna to construct two tug boats. We at Konflict echo the slogan of the Greek port workers when they say “Our hands will not be soaked in blood”.  We call on people to join us in our demonstration on October 7th outside the court house at 18.00 to protest against the barbarism of the current genocide in Gaza, and the profiteering of companies in this country from the blood of children.