One of a number of protests in the borough calling for a ceasefire

• MEMBERS of CADFA, the Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association, and many other local people are hugely upset both at the appalling suffering in Gaza and the ongoing devastation caused by Israel’s relentless bombing and also at the refusal of Sir Keir Starmer to join the call for a ceasefire.

As a leader of the opposition who is providing no opposition to the government’s support for Israel in these attacks, he is helping to enable constant bombing of civilian areas, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, a siege on food supplies, water, fuel for incubators and even for the hospital fridges overflowing with bodies.

It is so appalling, no wonder that there were a million people on the streets of London last weekend in protest against what seems a never-ending list of war crimes.

Our own organisation has for 20 years now been close to people in Abu Dis, in the West Bank, where the situation is also terrible though more hidden from the news.

Everyone is scared. Last week three young people were shot and killed in Abu Dis, one, the brother of a boy who visited Camden with CADFA in 2014, one the cousin of a boy who came on our youth visit in 2022, and one who joined the summer camps that we supported, when he was a child.

Sir Keir Starmer is our MP and we have had taken part in many demonstrations in Camden in the past few weeks calling on him to back the call for a ceasefire and also seeking to talk to people about the issue.

We are really struck by the warmth of the reception by local people. Lots of “well done,” and “I agree with you,” or beeping car horns, in turn, encouraging us all to keep going.

We call on Sir Keir Starmer urgently to put all efforts into promoting human rights and international humanitarian law for everybody.

NANDITA DOWSON
Director, CADFA