LAST week, as Israel launched bombing attacks on Gaza that would result in the deaths of 25 Palestinians, including a pregnant mother and a 14-month-old baby, the majority of Britain’s media described Israel’s actions as a response to rocket attacks or framed the events as a “resumption of hostilities.” 

The round of rocket attacks from Gaza began after Israel killed two Palestinians on the Friday during the Great Return March protests, adding to the more than 200 killed since these weekly protests began in March 2018, alongside nearly 30,000 injured and maimed. 

These killings have only received mainstream media coverage on days when large numbers of Palestinians have been killed or on the few occasions when Palestinian violence has harmed Israelis.
 
We are told that, now the ceasefire has been announced, life will return to normal and calm will be restored. 

Normal of course for Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem means life under occupation with denial of the rights of freedom of movement and assembly, the rights to build homes, farm, fish and run businesses unhindered, and with a continuing level of violence that kills on average 10 Palestinians a week. 
 
On May 15 Palestinians will mark 71 years since the Nakba which drove more than 750,000 from their homes and wiped from existence more than 450 towns and villages. 

Three days later Israel will welcome the world to a song contest hailed as a celebration of life. 

And as Israel welcomes the artists and musicians to play, it will continue to deny entry to all those who campaign for justice for the Palestinian people and advocate for boycott in response to Israel’s human rights abuses.
 
Soon, we are told, Donald Trump will launch his “Deal of the Century” — the details of which are already being mapped out: on-the-ground annexation of the West Bank, removal of the right to have Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, and a plan to deny for good the right of return which will leave the majority of the Palestinian people exiled from their homeland. Palestinians have declared this assault on their collective rights a “new Nakba.”
 
Israel’s continuing assaults on all forms of Palestinian protest are an attempt to break the Palestinian spirit so that they might accept any deal forced upon them by the unholy coalition of Israel, the US and authoritarian Arab regimes. 

In the past few weeks and months the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has publicised the words of courageous Palestinian leaders like Diana Buttu, Ahed Tamimi and Omar Barghouti who have reaffirmed the commitment of the Palestinian people to their cause but also issued a call for action from the international community. 

A coalition of Palestinian groups launched a call for global action in December last year with these words: “Only international solidarity can provide us with the force to withstand this unprecedented regional collusion to liquidate the Palestinian people and their cause.”
 
Diana, Ahed and Omar — on behalf of all of their Palestinian sisters and brothers — have asked us to declare our solidarity by marching on May 11. 

Join us in London on Saturday as we say to the Palestinian people: “We have heard you calling from the darkness and we cannot and will not ignore you.”
 
Ben Jamal is director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. The Twitter hashtag for the London demonstration is #ExistResistReturn.