WORKERS across Britain are taking part in a day of action for Palestine tomorrow, demanding an end to 77 years of the Nakba or ”catastrophe” that saw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians expelled from their homes during the founding of the state of Israel.

They also joined the growing calls for the British government and institutions to end their complicity in Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians.

More than 80 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were killed today during more Israeli attacks.

In Britain, trade unionists have joined the weekly protests since October 7, 2023, and have been leading “an array of solidarity actions,” according to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), one of the organisers of the Workplace Day of Action.

Actions tomorrow will include lunchtime walkouts, meetings, teach-ins, film screenings as well as the distribution of leaflets for the latest national demonstration on Saturday, May 17, in central London.

Organisers have also encouraged workers to launch petitions demanding the divestment of pension funds from companies complicit in Israeli attacks, host letter-writing sessions to engage councillors, and promote the Don’t Buy Apartheid campaign.

This includes urging employers to stop stocking Israeli fresh produce and Coca-Cola products.

The action is supported by the TUC, which passed a motion in September to demand an end to all licences for arms traded with Israel.

PSC director Ben Jamal said: “Today we mark the Nakba not as a moment of collective trauma, enduring in memory but of the past, but as an ongoing catastrophe, manifested in 77 years of ethnic cleansing, dispossession and colonisation.

“Today we remember the breadth and depth of British complicity in that catastrophe from the Balfour Declaration to today’s military, diplomatic, economic and political support for genocide.

“As Palestinians in Gaza endure Israel’s programme of forced starvation, and as Palestinians globally reassert their promise to exist, resist erasure and return, we reassert our commitment to stand with them until liberation is achieved.”

Mr Jamal added: “We call on every person of conscience to continue to hold government, public bodies and corporations to account and to join us on the streets of London this Saturday.”

PCS general secretary, Fran Heathcote said: “PCS is proud to stand with Palestine to mark the 77th anniversary of the Nakba which saw the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinian people from their homeland, and the destruction of over 500 cities, towns and villages.

“We have encouraged our members to commemorate the Nakba by showing solidarity to Palestinians during Thursday’s workplace day of action.

“With Israel continuing its genocide, bombing homes and hospitals and blocking aid into Gaza, it’s crucial now more than ever we demand peace and justice for the Palestinian people.”

Communist Party international secretary Kevan Nelson said: “Seventy-seven years on, the situation facing Palestinians is worse than ever, with over 53,000 killed and 120,000 injured in the past 18 months. 

“Today the people of Gaza are being subjected to unprecedented levels of depravity by the Israeli regime with 500,000 facing starvation. Talk is cheap.

“The British government must act by immediately ending all arms sales and military assistance to Israel. Britain must recognise the state of Palestine without delay.”

War on Want senior campaigner on Palestine Neil Sammonds said: “We remember today and every day the Nakba, the mass forced dispossession of Palestinians and destruction of historic Palestine.

“We demand accountability for the 1947-8 Nakba and the ever-worsening ongoing Nakba war crimes of the settler colonial enterprise assisted throughout by corrupt British and global political, corporate and military elites.”

In the House of Commons, MPs from all sides united to denounce the failure of the Labour government to step up to its international responsibilities to prevent a genocide in Gaza.

Hapless Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer offered platitudes but no policy changes, condemning Israel’s conduct while ducking any commitment to definite actions.

Labour MP Rosena Allin-Khan said: “Almost a million children are at risk of famine and death in Gaza. Those who have stood by and allowed this to happen should hold their heads in shame.

“I call on this government to sanction Israeli officials until the blockade is lifted because if we do not act now this will be on us.”

Tory Edward Leigh said it was “unacceptable to recklessly bomb a hospital and unacceptable to starve a whole people. When is genocide not genocide?”

Labour MP Andy McDonald told Mr Falconer that Britain was not complying with its  obligations “if we continue to supply parts to the F-35 programme. These are the weapons that are dropping on children in Gaza.

“We cannot say we’re observing the genocide and Geneva conventions and Rome statute if we continue to supply those goods.”

Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said Israel’s aid blockade was to blame for Palestinians starving and that a genocide was possible in Gaza.

Labour’s Abitsam Mohamed accused Israel of acting “in explicit violation of international law” and asked why Britain was still supplying arms, while Tory Kit Malthouse warned Mr Falconer that he and other ministers could be held legally accountable for their inaction.

For the Liberal Democrats, Monica Harding urged recognition of a Palestinian state and the sanctioning of far-right Israeli ministers while the Scottish National Party’s Brendan O’Hara condemned government lawyers for arguing that there was no genocide in Gaza.

The beleaguered Mr Falconer acknowledged “Israel’s denial of aid is appalling,” and the food blockade “cruel and indefensible,” demanding that it must end but without committing to doing anything.

He refused to admit Israel was committing genocide, saying this was a matter for international courts.

On the F-35 programme, he said Britain was not selling the jets directly to Israel, that it was supplying spare parts in accordance with legal advice and that the F-35 programme was of “critical importance to European security.”

International calls for justice for the Palestinian people also continued to pour in.

Director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research Vijay Prashad said: “The Nakba was not just an event in 1948. It is a process for the annihilation of the Palestinian peoples that continues. 

“The Nakba, till the defeat of this annihilationist zionism, is a permanent Nakba.”

Black Agenda Reports executive editor Margaret Kimberley said: “The illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, war crimes, and genocide began on May 15, 1948. Every atrocity committed by the zionist entity has its roots in the Nakba, the catastrophe.”

US based journalist Eugene Puryear said: “Israel and its supporters are continuing the same process of ethnic cleansing that began with the Nakba. The day offers a reminder that the expulsion of the Palestinians, accomplished through dispossession and genocide, is core to the Zionist project, not an aberration. From 1948 to 2025, however, the Palestinian people have continued to stand for their right to self-determination, dignity and humanity. 

"Now, more than ever, people of conscience across the world must stand with them. Particularly in the United States, the guarantor for Israeli lawless and its main partner in genocide.”

Meanwhile, Israeli air strikes in northern and southern Gaza today killed at least 80 people, including almost two dozen children, according to local hospitals and health officials.

This came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was “no way” he would halt Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian territory before Hamas is defeated.

At least 50 people, including 22 children, were killed in strikes around Jabaliya in northern Gaza alone, according to hospitals and Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The strikes came after Hamas released an Israeli-American hostage on Monday, a gesture that some thought could lay the groundwork for a ceasefire.

Israel’s military refused to comment on the strikes, but warned Jabaliya residents to evacuate on Tuesday, claiming it was targeting militant infrastructure in the area, including rocket launchers.

In Jabaliya, rescue workers were forced to smash through collapsed concrete slabs using hand tools, lit by the light of mobile phones, to remove children’s bodies.