AS THE new school year begins, my thoughts are with the children and educators of Gaza. For the third year in a row, Gaza’s children are being denied an education. Almost all of Gaza’s schools have been damaged or destroyed and every single university razed to the ground.

I am thinking also of our colleagues in the General Union of Palestinian Teachers. More than 650 teachers have been killed in Gaza. Their classrooms and livelihoods destroyed. UN human rights experts have described the systemic destruction of the Palestinian education system as a “scholasticide.”

As the TUC meets for its 157th annual Congress in Brighton this week, all trade unionists must redouble our efforts in solidarity with the people of Gaza.

For almost two years, bombs have fallen daily on civilians, children, journalists, hospitals and schools in Gaza. Humanitarian suffering is beyond imagination. For the first time in the Middle East, famine has been declared: half-a million people are facing a catastrophic, deliberate and entirely human-made famine.  

The world’s leading association of genocide scholars has declared that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Israel continues to block life-saving aid while intensifying its assault on Gaza City, seeking to seize and empty the city of its one million inhabitants. In the West Bank, Palestinian homes and schools are being demolished at the highest rate since the occupation began in 1967, accelerating the process towards annexation and the further ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

In response, Palestinian trade unions have issued an urgent call to escalate campaigns “to end this shameful complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation, colonial apartheid and genocide.”

The NEU and the wider trade union movement has been unwavering in its condemnation of the atrocities being committed against the Palestinian people. We have demanded an immediate and lasting ceasefire, the unconditional release of the hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza and an end to the blockade and occupation.

At last year’s TUC Congress, our motion demanded sanctions against those inciting genocide and an end to all arms sales to Israel. Demands which have since been echoed across our movement and in public opinion. The British public support a full arms embargo on Israel by more than 4 to 1.

Ministers say Britain is doing all it can to end the suffering in Gaza. A pause on future trade talks and sanctions on Israeli government ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich and some settlers, are welcome but are wholly inadequate.  

Instead of a two-way arms embargo, Keir Starmer’s government has massively increased the number of weapons we send to Israel — approving more in three months than the Tories did in four years.

It has also created a legal loophole that means that British-built components continue to power Israel’s fleet of F-35 fighter jets, dropping 2,000lb bombs on Gaza. Our government admits these weapons may be used in breach of international law — yet still approves them. Some 15 per cent of every F-35 that Israel is using to bombard Gaza is made by British industry.

Britain must stop facilitating Israel’s onslaught. This requires a total arms embargo — no half measures — no complicity in genocide.

Schools, homes and hospitals are being destroyed by weaponry dropped by aircraft whose parts are built in Britain. More than 50,000 children have been killed or injured by Israel while those who have survived are now dying of starvation and malnutrition. All the available evidence indicates that the government of Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war.

Last week UNRWA’s commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini warned: “Gaza is becoming the graveyard of international humanitarian law.” It has already become a mass grave for Palestinians and those who try to help them.

As famine rips through Gaza and with Israeli leaders threatening yet more civilian deaths and displacement, it is not only the future of millions of Palestinians at stake. It is our collective humanity and international law itself. We need to act fast and decisively.

We need a permanent ceasefire, a total ban on arms and military collaboration with Israel, and an end to trade with illegal settlements. These are the necessary steps towards ending Britain’s complicity in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.  

It is also the call of Palestinian trade unions and civil society. International solidarity lies at the heart of our movement, and the people of Palestine need our solidarity in actions not words. I urge all TUC affiliates to support Motion 71 on The crisis in Palestine. This week, let Congress send a united message of international solidarity to the people of Palestine.

Daniel Kebede is general secretary of the National Education Union.