Whilst Western governments continue to provide protection and support for Israel, including by supplying arms which the Israeli Offense Forces (IOF) use in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, a brutal persecution is being waged against those in support of Palestinian liberation.
The criminalisation of solidarity with Palestinian liberation, has come under sustained attack since 7 October 2023. A report by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) revealed how the UK, the US, France and Germany, continue to misuse their immigration, counter-terrorism legislation as well as antisemitism hate crime laws to suppress support for Palestinian rights in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Despite the laws of all the mentioned countries differing, it is clear they represent a persistent trend of global repression.
Prisoners of war
As Western governments continue to pretend to call for an end to Israel’s punitive governance and policy of ethnic cleansing, and displacement, they have adopted the relentless legislative pursuit of those actively trying to prevent it. This is not new, and only proves what has been true since the 1917 Balfour Declaration: Israel exists as a proxy state for Western imperialism and settler-colonialism.
In the face of this repression, however, coverage in the mainstream media is still limited. This is representative of a wider failure to interrogate how governments and prison systems inflict terror, whilst conflating the identities and beliefs of minorities being illegally detaining, with terrorism.
To understand the stakes of Western media complicity is to therefore expose the reality these actionists are fighting to dismantle when they interfere with the infrastructures their governments build, sustain and fund to enact genocidal violence. For example, the UK government continues operations of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer which provides its airforce with 85% of its combat drones, and its land forces with 80% of the weapons and equipment they use against Palestinians.
This is why all those detained for taking action against the complicity, are seen as prisoners of war proxy by solidarity movements around the world, they too are targets of Israel’s brutal apparatus. And this is made more apparent with the revelation by Declassified through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Home Office, that government officials had a private meeting with Elbit Systems in December 2024.
Extending and exporting repression
Indeed, the persecution of activists in the West is merely an extension of the cruelty of the Israeli prison system, where over 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners (over 2,900 of them from Gaza), are still fighting for their freedom Palestinians.
Over 3,500 of these Palestinian prisoners are held under the Israeli system of 'administrative detention’ which allows them to imprison Palestinians for up to six months without charge or trial. Since 7 October, this system has only intensified, with scenes of systemic torture, starvation, lack of access to lawyers or family members, punitive strip searches and humiliation of detainees becoming the norm.
Detention orders are reified by an Israeli military court, and the six-month period of imprisonment can be renewed indefinitely, with none of the detainees or their legal teams having access to evidence detailing the reasons. Many have consequently been imprisoned for years without any due process.
The same repressive playbook is being used globally, and an archipelago of political prisoners is being built by Israel with the facilitation of Western governments. In October 2025, 11 of 27 members of the Greek delegation participating in the Global Sumud Flotilla were captured and shortly after, announced their collective hunger strike to protest their illegal detention by Israeli authorities under anti-terrorist laws.
In Italy Palestinians, Anan Yaeesh, Mansour Doghmosh and Ali Irar continue to be held since March 2024, where they exist in the same judicial limbo as Palestinian administrative detainees. An Italian Court of Appeal refused the extradition bid by Israel for Yaeesh – who has been on hunger strike since October – because he faces the risk of torture in Israeli prison. This begs the question why the Italian judiciary system continues to detain him in “preventative custody“ for supporting the resistance of the illegal military occupation in Tulkarem, in the West Bank.
Similarly, a Palestinian who was granted asylum has been held in remand within a French prison for over a year and half after being detained under France’s anti-terrorism legislation at the Israeli government's request. Having already experienced administrative detentions prior to leaving Palestine in 2014, it seems Israel is determined to insure its punitive unjust judiciary process follows him wherever he goes.
Even in the US, Palestinian student Leqaa Kordia, who participated in the Columbia University protests whilst grieving the murder of hundreds of family members by the IOF, has been held in ICE immigration detention in Texas for nine months.
A global struggle
Meanwhile, in the UK the largest pro-Palestinian hunger strike remains steadfast. Of the 29 pro-Palestine activists (Filton 24 and Brize Norton 5) who are being held without trial in remand over their alleged involvement in actions against UK subsidiaries of Elbit Systems and the Royal Air Force (RAF) Brize Norton base, eight have been on hunger strike (some for up to 50 days). Whilst none have been charged with terrorism, the counter-terrorism laws that keep them in remand, and the forced retrospective association with the now proscribed group Palestine Action, exemplifies how Western governments punish those who carry out direct action in support of Palestine liberation.
The hunger strikers are demanding: an end to censorship as they await trial, immediate bail, immediate release, guarantee of safety as full citizens (especially those with a migrant status), the end of Israeli interference in their judiciary processes, and the end of the genocide in Gaza. These sit within the broader demands to de-proscription Palestine Action and exonerate the over 2,000 citizens arrested under the Terrorism Act for holding signs indicating support for the group.
Despite being geographically separated, the resolve of all of Israel’s global political prisoners is connected. For the actionists, activists and organisers alike who have been detained and imprisoned, parallels should constantly be drawn between their resistance and those of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
This is particularly important in the face of bigger Palestine solidarity platforms either being selective or largely ignoring the plight of the prisoners, especially the UK hunger strike currently taking place.
It is clear that growing crackdowns are linked to Western governments failing to quash the unshakeable international solidarity and resistance efforts over recent years. Whilst the growing number of Israel’s global political prisoners of war is supposed to instil fear in the rest of us, and to dissuade us from organising and protesting against Israel’s crimes, movements have only grown bigger and stronger.
Beauty Dhlamini is a Tribune columnist. She is a global health scholar with a focus on health inequalities and co-hosts the podcast Mind the Health Gap.
Follow her on Twitter: @BeautyDhlamini
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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.