THE NEU has a long and proud history of standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people, going back to 1982 when the massacres in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps took place. In 2013, we took our first delegation to visit and learn first-hand the daily experience of the Palestinian people living under occupation.

With every delegation that we have taken, members have come back inspired by the steadfastness of the Palestinian people and determined to do what they always ask: to tell their story because their voices are silenced. These delegations have enabled us to build strong links with educators and partner organisations, including the General Union of Palestinian Teachers.

Since October last year, we have watched in horror the impact of the war on Gaza. Over 42,000 Palestinians killed, over two-thirds of them women and children.

In March, the UN reported that more children had been killed in Gaza in four months than in four years of war worldwide. Thousands more have been killed since. Ten children a day face an amputation with no anaesthetic and at least 3,000 children have had at least one limb amputated.

This week, a new horrifying statistic — a classroom full of children has been killed each day for a year. As educators, it is devastating to even begin to imagine this — a classroom full of children every day!

Eighty-five per cent of schools in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, and all 12 universities have been completely or partially destroyed. This is a war on children and education.

Since October 2023, 625,000 students have had no access to education for an entire school year. They have witnessed horrific and terrifying events, and the trauma they have suffered will take years, if not decades, to overcome.

Across the West Bank, attacks have increased significantly, with over 650 Palestinians killed since last October. A report recently released by Defence for Children Palestine, Targeting Childhood: Palestinian Children Killed by Israeli Forces and Settlers in the Occupied West Bank, states that 20 per cent of the Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank since 2,000 have been killed after October 7, at a rate of one child every two days.

At the TUC Congress this year, the NEU put forward a motion calling on trade unions to do more, to pressure our government to end all arms sales with Israel and to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.

A comprehensive end to all arms sales is a necessary step towards ending Britain’s complicity in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.

Britain’s arms export licensing regime allows Britain to export military goods used by Israel through “incorporation licences,” weapons, components and military technology are exported to a third state, incorporated in larger weapons systems, and then exported on to Israel.

One example of this is F-35 fighter jets used to bomb Gaza. Campaign Against Arms Trade has reported that Britain provides approximately 15 per cent of the components in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet, an aircraft recently revealed to have been used in a massacre committed in July in al-Mawasi camp, killing 90 Palestinians and injuring at least 300. There was a further attack on al Mawasi camp, killing at least 40 people.

Amnesty UK has called on the government to withdraw the 2002 incorporation guidelines as part of ending all arms sales to Israel, and a further 18 charities have called on Britain to end all arms transfers to Israel.

Right now, Palestinians are standing in the dark, but we know that they will rise again as they have always done. Our task is to stand with them, to escalate our actions, to keep speaking out.

Palestinians tell us that they don’t need our tears, they need our voices, as theirs are silenced. But they need more than our words — they need our actions, too. This involves not only protesting on the streets, putting pressure on our politicians, but also pushing forward with the BDS campaign.

Palestinian trade unionists have called for the global trade union movement to pressure organisations and companies complicit with Israel’s crimes. That call makes explicit the need for trade unions to build BDS campaigns and to make their unions apartheid-free zones. This is something that we really need to focus on and build within the trade union movement.

The NEU’s solidarity work with Palestine did not begin in October 2023, and it will not end once the war is finally over. Our solidarity with the Palestinian people, and Palestinian educators, in particular, is stronger than ever.

There is much that we must continue to do in building our movement, but we cannot and must not stop until there is a permanent ceasefire, until the genocide is ended, until all the walls of apartheid are dismantled, until the day when Palestinians are finally free.

Louise Regan is a member of the NEU’s national executive.