The Right Is Stirring Up Anti-Muslim Hate, And It's Getting Worse

In the summer of 2024, hotels sheltering Muslim asylum seekers across Britain were attacked by violent mobs. A year later, as the summer of 2025 drew to a close, a far-right demonstration of 100,000 people marched through London, bearing St George’s flags and led by Tommy Robinson.

On Downstream this week is Myriam François, a broadcaster and journalist, whose conversion to Islam 20 years ago has profoundly shaped her life in Britain. In conversation with Ash Sarkar, she tells the story of how she was politicised by a trip to Palestine in the early 2000s. Does she think Britain’s move to recognise the state of Palestine will make any difference to the lives of people on the ground in Gaza? What is 'whiteness' and how do those who are included in it wield power in society? Is Islamophobia getting worse? And is an end to racism possible, without an end to capitalism?

Tony Blair Wants To Run Gaza

Pro-Palestine protesters arrested in Liverpool as UK Labour Party conference begins

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered in Liverpool on Saturday, the day before the start of the governing Labour Party’s annual conference. The demonstrators, who were taking part in a march organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, expressed their desire for the British government to “end Israel’s genocide, stop starving Gaza, stop arming Israel.

On Sunday, dozens of protesters sat in, waiting to be arrested by the British authorities because of the identical banners they were holding. “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” their signs read.

In Gaza City, Israel is trying to ‘wipe out all means of sustaining life’

The Palestinians fleeing Gaza City are telling us how relentless and intense the bombing is there.

Israeli forces are targeting houses. Yesterday, a high-rise housing dozens of families displaced from areas around Gaza was hit. The surrounding area was full of tents of displaced people.

The Israeli military is trying to wipe out all means of sustaining life – infrastructure, water tanks, solar panels. Anything that might help Palestinians survive this ground operation is being destroyed.

They’re using remote-operated vehicles that are laden with two tonnes of explosives, and sending them into residential neighbourhoods. We hear these explosions from far away – from Deir el-Balah, az-Zawayda.

That’s why Palestinian families are on the move, fleeing from Gaza City into the unknown.


_{Displaced Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation move southwards through the central Gaza Strip}

‘We no longer appeal to the world. We gave up on that’: Gaza resident

Displaced Palestinians enduring constant Israeli bombardment in Gaza have expressed their despair at their suffering.

In the wake of another deadly attack, Abu Mohammed Samour said: “Who permitted this? What kind of death and unjust world is this?” He continued: “We no longer appeal to the world. We gave up on that.”

Another man, Abu Ammar Khudier, said children, the elderly and women “were all targets”. “There’s no safe place,” he concluded.

Heavy gunfire reported around Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital

Footage circulating on social media shows heavy gunfire in the vicinity of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital. In the video, posted to Instagram and verified by Al Jazeera, an extended barrage of gunshots is heard.

Al-Shifa, the largest medical facility still functioning in northern Gaza, has been attacked and raided numerous times by Israeli forces since the war began, with much of the building destroyed.

In recent days, the hospital’s director Muhammad Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera that his team was committed to keeping the facility running as long as possible amid the escalating Israeli offensive, saying “thousands will die” if it went out of service.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPLACRIinLy

‘Every essential system has collapsed’ in Gaza City: Humanitarian worker

Al Jazeera spoke with Hamida Jamahah, the country director for humanitarian organisation Plan International, about its challenges navigating new displacement orders and aid restrictions in Gaza.

Jamahah said from Jordan’s capital Amman that “every essential system has collapsed” in Gaza City – from hospitals, to water infrastructure, to education and shelter.

“Children, instead of being in classrooms or playgrounds, are basically fleeing air strikes and being starved to death,” she said.

Jamahah said her organisation is working to deliver life-saving aid via access points in Jordan and Egypt, but restrictions are severely limiting their service.

In addition, local humanitarian workers themselves face the same violence and instability as the people they serve, she noted.

“Whatever applies to the people in Gaza also applies to the humanitarian workers,” she said. “One of our partners lost an additional member of their staff along with her family in an air strike last week.”

Israeli military says ‘continuing to expand operations in Gaza City’

In its latest war update, Israel’s military says it is deepening its offensive in Gaza City, where it claims it has recently killed numerous fighters and destroyed military infrastructure.

Specifically, the military claims to have taken out surveillance equipment used against it and killed fighters who attempted to plant concealed explosives. In addition, the military says naval forces struck a Hamas weapons depot.

As we’ve reported, an Israeli military attack on a home in Nuseirat killed many civilians, including women and children, yesterday.

_{Leaflets dropped by Israeli forces ordering residents to evacuate fall next to a damaged building in Gaza City, September 29}

Gaza’s blood banks face ‘complete shutdown’ amid Israeli attacks, ministry warns

Gaza’s Health Ministry has released a statement, warning that blood banks in hospitals across the Strip face the prospect of a “complete shutdown” as Palestinians are rushed in with injuries sustained in Israeli attacks.

The statement said: “Blood banks in hospitals are threatened with complete shutdown as a result of severe depletion of laboratory supplies necessary for transfusion, testing and storage of blood units and components.”

It added that there were severe shortages of blood too, warning that this was hampering hospitals’ ability to make “life-saving interventions for the wounded”.

Four aid seekers shot dead by Israeli forces near Rafah

Israeli forces have shot dead four people seeking aid near a distribution centre to the north of Rafah city, our colleagues on the ground report, citing Nasser Hospital.

Since the US- and Israel-backed GHF took over aid distribution in Gaza earlier this year, attacks on aid seekers have surged. In total, more than 2,500 people have been killed and 18,700 wounded while seeking aid in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry.

UN records 17 Israeli attacks on Gaza City health facilities in past 2 weeks

The UN’s Human Rights Office for the occupied Palestinian territory says it has recorded 17 Israeli attacks “on or near health facilities in Gaza City” since September 16 as Israel continues its offensive on the territory’s largest urban area.

The organisation said al-Quds Hospital, al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital and the Medical Relief Health Centre, all in Gaza City, were directly struck, while attacks also took place in the vicinity of al-Shifa Hospital and al-Ahli Hospital.

“Such attacks are leaving sick and injured civilians with nowhere to turn to for life-saving care, as escalating attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure are leading to countless casualties,” it said. “Immediate protection and access to healthcare and humanitarian assistance are imperative.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry, as of September 25, said only seven out of 13 hospitals in Gaza City were “operational, but only barely”.

_{Exodus from Gaza City continues}

Al Jazeera reporter films Israeli strike on building in Gaza City

As we’ve been reporting, Israeli attacks in Gaza City have routinely targeted entire residential buildings. Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili, reporting from the eastern side of the city, captured footage of one such strike, which he said “left the entire neighbourhood in panic”.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QOP9vlixcsk


Palestinians survey destruction in Gaza City after Israeli attacks


_{Palestinians walk along a street filled with rubble after an Israeli military incursion in Gaza City}

Footage shows Israeli bomb attacks near Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital

Footage shared on social media and verified by Al Jazeera shows Israeli bombs pounding a residential neighbourhood near Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital.

The footage shows multiple Israeli bombs striking a seven-storey building and the surrounding area. The video then captures the devastation caused by the attacks, showing destroyed buildings and a vehicle, and streets strewn with rubble.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPL2PHwDOPS

Israeli forces bulldoze restaurant, fire stun grenades in West Bank raids: Report

Israeli forces have carried out a familiar wave of overnight raids in the occupied West Bank. According to the Wafa news agency, they:

Yemen’s Houthis claim hypersonic missile attack on Israel

The Houthi armed group says it launched a hypersonic ballistic missile and two drones at targets in Israel. In a statement, it said it fired a “Palestine 2 hypersonic ballistic missile with multiple warheads” at Tel Aviv and sent two drones towards Eilat in southern Israel overnight.

The group said the strikes were carried out “in response to the crimes of genocide and the dangerous escalation carried out by the Israeli enemy against our people in the Gaza Strip”, adding they would “continue to fulfil our religious, moral, and humanitarian duties until the aggression against Gaza stops”.

According to the Israeli military, the missile was successfully intercepted. There were no reports about the two drones.

Israeli soldier injured in southern Syria, says military

An explosion at an Israeli military outpost in southern Syria has severely injured an Israeli reservist officer, the army said.

The soldier has been hospitalised for treatment, it said.

Turkiye helps rescue Gaza aid activists after ship breaks down

Turkiye helped evacuate activists on board a Gaza-bound aid flotilla after one of the vessels broke down and began taking on water, organisers and Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu reported.

In a statement on Instagram, the Global Sumud Flotilla organisers said the mission was temporarily halted after Johnny M sustained a leak in its engine room.

“All participants have been safely transferred to another vessel. Some will be reassigned to other ships, while others will be brought ashore,” the statement said.

According to Anadolu, the vessel was located in international waters between Crete, Cyprus and Egypt when it issued a distress call early on Monday. Turkish authorities, including the Turkish Red Crescent, coordinated the evacuation effort.

Semih Fener, the captain of one of the ships dispatched to assist, told Anadolu the incident was due to a technical malfunction, not sinking. “We picked up 12 people and distributed them to other ships. Four people will return home,” he said, adding that the evacuees would travel to their respective countries via Turkiye.

Pro-Palestine protester disrupts UK finance minister’s speech

A pro-Palestine protester has interrupted a speech by the UK’s finance minister, Rachel Reeves, as she was delivering a speech at a party conference in Liverpool.

“We understand your cause, and we are recognising a Palestinian state. But we are now a party of government, not a party of protest,” Reeves told the protester.


_{A protester holds up a Palestine flag as he disrupts Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves’s keynote speech at the Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool}

Sixty-four people, including 83-year-old, arrested at Liverpool protest for Palestine Action

Police in the UK say they arrested 64 people, including an 83-year-old, at a protest in Liverpool yesterday in support of the banned campaign group Palestine Action.

Protesters had gathered for a peaceful sit-in outside the Labour Party’s annual conference in the city, holding signs that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

Merseyside Police said in a statement that the 64 people, ranging in age from 21 to 83, had been arrested on suspicion of displaying articles in support of a proscribed organisation, and had since been released on bail.

Here are some details of plan on table during Trump-Netanyahu meeting

The plan put forward by Trump has been drafted in collaboration with Israel and the institute run by Tony Blair, who was the United Kingdom’s prime minister during the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq based on false claims of weapons of mass destruction.

The plan considers appointing him as the head of a newly established entity called the Gaza International Transitional Authority (GITA), which would administer Gaza after Hamas is removed, for up to several years.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper on Monday released a document that it said contained the full power structure of the authority, which puts senior international diplomats and businesspeople at the top and the Palestinians running things on the ground at the bottom.

The international board of GITA, which will initially be based in Egypt or elsewhere near, but outside Gaza, due to the chaotic situation created by Israel on the ground, could include a UN official, renowned Egyptian businessmen, and Muslim members in an attempt to build credibility.

It will reportedly have an executive secretariat, with five commissioners operating under it to oversee humanitarian affairs, reconstruction, legislation, security oversight, and coordination with the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is urged to undergo reforms for a promise that it would take charge of governance at an undisclosed future timeline.

Below all of them, will be a Palestinian technocratic authority appointed by the board to handle some implementation on the ground as a multinational stabilisation force takes charge of border crossings, Gaza’s coastline and “perimeter zones” near Israel and Egypt’s borders that are currently occupied by Israel.

‘Hell no’: Rumoured Tony Blair appointment as head of Gaza transitional administration prompts backlash

There have been rumours that former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair could lead Gaza for a transitional period as part of the post-war plan proposed by Trump. Several figures have reacted to this, blasting the idea.

Husam Badran, member of Hamas’s political bureau, said the Palestinian people are not “minors needing guardianship”, adding that any decisions about “Gaza or the West Bank are internal Palestinian matters to be resolved by national consensus, not imposed by outside powers”. He added that Blair should be on trial for his role in the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, not administering the Gaza Strip. “Any plan linked to Blair is an ill omen.”

Reacting to the circulating rumour, Rima Hassan, a Franco-Palestinian member of the European Parliament, has said: “Decolonising Palestine means decolonising it from ALL its colonisers.”

Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s former finance minister and author, said it was “classic Blair” to promote himself for such a role. “A war criminal himself, he demands a five-year appointment to run the site of Israel’s genocide on behalf of Donald Trump in the finest tradition of white settler colonial projects,” he wrote on X.

Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, told Times Radio that Blair’s record in the Middle East, which involved backing George Bush in a ruinous and illegal war against Iraq in 2003, was “not one to be proud of… He does not have the confidence and trust of Palestinians.”

Francesca Albanese, the UN expert for Palestine, posted: “Tony Blair? Hell no.”

And the historian and author William Dalrymple said: “Given Blair’s superb record in the Middle East, what could possibly go wrong?”