Keir Starmer Accused of Complicity in Gaza Genocide Amid Mass Protest

600,000 March on Downing Street While Starmer Turns His Back on Gaza Genocide

As Israel intensifies its bombing campaign in Gaza, preparing for yet another ground assault to add to its mounting war crimes, 600,000 British citizens delivered a message that Sir Keir Starmer seems determined to ignore: cut ties with the perpetrators of genocide.

In one of the largest demonstrations since Britain’s illegal invasion of Iraq, central London was transformed Saturday into a sea of Palestinian flags and demands for justice as hundreds of thousands marked the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, “the catastrophe” that saw Zionist militias ethnically cleanse Palestine to create the state of Israel in 1948.

The People vs. The Government

While ordinary Britons from all walks of life marched in solidarity with Palestine, Starmer’s government stand firmly on the wrong side of history, arming, funding and shielding a regime that is systematically erasing Gaza from the map.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which organised the march alongside Stop the War and the Palestinian Forum in Britain, estimated the turnout at 600,000 people. This makes it the largest Gaza solidarity demonstration since November 2023, a testament to growing public outrage as Israel’s genocide approaches its eighth month.

Yet the British government’s response remains one of complicity wrapped in empty rhetoric about “restraint” and “humanitarian concerns.”

Nakba Then and Now: A Continuous Catastrophe

For Palestinians, the Nakba is not merely historical, it is ongoing. In 1948, Zionist forces killed thousands of Palestinians, destroyed hundreds of villages, and forcibly expelled 80 percent of the Palestinian population from their homeland. After a year of violence, the newly created State of Israel had captured 78 percent of historic Palestine.

The remaining 22 percent, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, were occupied by Israel 19 years later and remain under Israeli military rule to this day. What we are witnessing in Gaza now is the culmination of this project: the final elimination of Palestinian existence from the land Israel has always coveted.

As the protesters gathered outside Downing Street, Israeli forces were “ramping up” their bombing campaign in Gaza, with the IDF boasting on social media about exerting “tremendous pressure” across the Strip. In the previous 24 hours alone, more than 150 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

What began with the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians has become an 8-decade cycle of dispossession, apartheid, and slaughter. The Nakba never ended; it simply evolved.

The Humanitarian Catastrophe Behind the Headlines

The statistics grow more horrifying by the day. The death toll in Gaza has now surpassed 53,000 since October 7th, a figure that doesn’t include thousands presumed dead under the rubble. Since March 2nd, Israel has barred all supplies, including food, water, and medicine from entering Gaza, a deliberate starvation strategy that constitutes yet another war crime.

According to the UN, 71 percent of the Gaza Strip is now under displacement orders or in Israeli-militarised zones. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed alarm over Israel’s plans to expand ground operations, emphasising that the UN “will not participate in any operation that doesn’t adhere to international law and humanitarian principles.”

Guterres also rejected “the repeated displacement of the population, along with any question of forced displacement outside of Gaza.” Yet Israel continues to push Palestinians into ever-shrinking “safe zones” that prove to be anything but safe as bombs rain down indiscriminately.

Ceasefire Charades

While Israel claimed ceasefire talks resumed in Doha on Saturday, its defence minister Israel Katz revealed the regime’s true position: after airstrikes and the mobilisation of forces, Hamas representatives “have agreed to sit in a room and seriously discuss the deal.”

“Israel emphasises that if the talks do not progress, the [military] operation will continue,” he added, making it clear that negotiations are conducted at gunpoint.

Most right-minded people understand by now that Israel will continue its genocide regardless of any concessions. This campaign has progressed far beyond any claim of “self-defence” and has revealed itself as what critics have long maintained: a systematic attempt to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its Palestinian population.

The reality stands… Israel isn’t negotiating peace, it’s enforcing surrender at gunpoint. This is not diplomacy. It is blackmail with bombs.

Starmer’s Silence Is Deafening

As the hundreds of thousands who marched on Saturday understand, the time for mealy-mouthed statements urging “restraint” has long passed. Britain is actively complicit in genocide through its continued arms sales to Israel, its diplomatic cover at the UN, and its refusal to impose sanctions.

MP Apsana Begum, Palestinian ambassador Hussam Zumlot, and historian William Dalrymple addressed the crowd outside Downing Street, but the person who needs to listen most remained conspicuously silent behind its closed doors.

Sir Keir Starmer, who once positioned himself as a former human rights lawyer, now presides over a policy of cold complicity, his silence deafening amid the screams from Gaza’s ruins. Starmer’s Labour does not speak for the oppressed; it speaks for arms dealers, lobbyists, and the ghost of Blairism.

The message from 600,000 British citizens could not be clearer: cut ties with Israel now. The question remains whether Starmer will listen to the people he claims to represent or continue to follow Benjamin Netanyahu’s lead in enabling genocide.

Silence is complicity. History will not forget, and neither will the voters.

Paul Knaggs