Edward Torsney

This week, Keir Starmer visited RAF Akrotiri – a British military base on Cyprus. It is from this base that Britain’s Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft depart to support the Israeli military in its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. In the past year, the RAF has flown at least 450 of these missions, collecting intelligence and acting as a “target acquisition” service for Israel’s bombers. Every time a war crime/atrocity is committed by Israel (bombing hospitals, schools, markets, refugee camps, aid drops etc.) a British Shadow R1 has been active in the area hours before and likely acquired the target and passed the coordinates and other intelligence on to Israel.

During this visit to Cyprus, Starmer spoke to troops and congratulated them on their work assisting a genocide:

“The whole world and everyone back at home is relying on you.”

He added: “Quite a bit of what goes on here can’t necessarily be talked about all of the time. We can’t necessarily tell the world what you’re doing.”

Starmer knows he can’t tell the world what he has ordered the RAF to do, because it’s in breach of international law and he would face an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court just like Yoav Gallant and Benjamin Netanyahu the principle genocidaires from Israel. Keir Starmer is just as guilty as them, and by extension he has caused the guilt of all the forces stationed at RAF Akrotiri for their involvement in the mass murder of Palestinian people.

The decisions Starmer makes in support of war criminals Netanyahu and Gallant affect us all, but none are affected like the children of Palestine.

I wonder if Starmer even considers how, to a child’s mind in Gaza, his decisions are perceived. He’s jointly ordering countless murders every day. How do these children view the results if his decisions?

Of course children have few frames of reference to relate their experience to, and traumatic events are often reinterpreted by desperate, innocent minds to resemble something they are familiar with. So I wonder if Keir Starmer can imagine how his decisions are perceived by a child in Gaza at Christmas:

As the first light of Christmas morning crept through the cracks in the boarded-up window, young Ali stirred awake, his eyes blinking groggily against the dim glow that filled the room. A peculiar warmth painted the walls with flickering shades of orange and red, casting playful shadows that danced with an eerie cheerfulness. To Ali’s innocent mind, it seemed as though Santa had outdone himself this year, decorating the world outside with the most brilliant Christmas lights he had ever seen. The air was thick with a cacophony of sounds that, to his sleep-addled senses, resembled the joyful singing he had heard in happier times. His heart swelled with a childlike wonder as he imagined families gathered in harmonious celebration, singing to their hearts’ content. Lovely hot food cooking on stoves and merriment all around. Ali was suddenly eager to get up and join his family in this beautiful, warm, glowing scene. 

As he struggled to move under an impossibly heavy blanket, the cold, hard reality that lay on the other side of his imagination was momentarily forgotten. 

Ali’s eyes caught sight of a figure approaching through the smoky haze, a silhouette covered head to foot with vibrant Christmas red clothes. His breath caught in his throat at the thought of Santa Claus, arriving not through the chimney but out of the very heart of the brilliant display outside. The figure stumbled toward him, and Ali’s heart raced with a mingling of excitement and fear. He did not yet understand the world of chaos that had emerged overnight, nor did he recognise the gravity of the scene unfolding. To him, it was Christmas morning, and amid the confusion, he clung to the magic he desperately wanted to believe in.

Ali was pulled from the rubble by his father who let out a loud wail of despair when he saw Ali’s broken body, chopped in half at the navel. Ali’s intestines hung like spent streamers where his legs should be. As his father held him aloft, the last precious drops of his young life drained away and his head fell lifeless and limp to one side. 

Suddenly a faint buzzing could be heard amid the screams and chaos that followed the missile strike. A small quadcopter drone had appeared hovering above the scene. There was a blue star decal on its white underbelly. It hung still for a second, as if gloating at the scene of body parts, blood and butchery below, before opening fire with an uzi-9mm machine gun attachment. The bullets sprayed into the crowd of rescuers, tearing white-hot through flesh and bone. Everyone fell to the ground. Everyone was quiet. The sound of the drone disappeared into the distance.

This was Ali’s third Christmas in Gaza and his last moments on Earth. 

Israel has killed at least 17,000 children like Ali in Gaza this year. There is no way to know exactly how many children because the hospitals used to count the bodies, but Israel destroyed all the hospitals and murdered all the doctors. 

A recent study by “The Lancet” (the world’s leading medical journal since 1823) estimates that at least 186,000 people have been exterminated by Israel in Gaza alone in the past year. 8% of the population has been killed so far in the Gaza Holocaust. During that time, Israel has also carried out extermination drives in The West Bank, Lebanon and Syria. 

Most of the murders by Israel follow the same general pattern: First F35 jets drop American made 2000lb bombs on targets where large groups of civilians are gathered – schools, hospitals, refugee camps, “safe zones”, aid drop zones, water sources etc. 

After the initial explosions, the Israelis wait for rescuers & family members to appear on the scene, after which they send in armed quadcopter drones (made in England) to machine-gun anyone standing. It’s systematic and indiscriminate. Israel approaches the extermination of Palestinians in the same way a pest control company would approach an infestation of insects.

We can draw parallels to previous genocides but even these comparisons are now not enough because the cruelty and evil of the Israeli regime has never been witnessed in such a way before.

I call upon Keir Starmer this Christmas to think about the thousands of children just like Ali who have been slaughtered this year by the Israeli butchers and to halt the sale of arms to Israel. Stop sending drones to murder children. Stop sending missiles and bombs. Stop sending F35 parts. Stop sending our air forces to fly reconnaissance missions for the genocidal regime! 

Not only should Keir Starmer’s morality prevail, but he is absolutely guilty now of involving our country in this genocide. 

Surely somewhere between his conscience and his guilt there is a little sense, perhaps even some humanity? It’s our duty to make him act, to save the children. To stop the genocide this Christmas.