WHAT CAN WE DO?
IN THE ELECTIONS TOMORROW (Thursday 7th May)
CONSIDER VOTING FOR CANDIDATES WHO HAVE SIGNED
THE PLEDGE FOR PALESTINE
A list of all candidates and councillors seeking re-election who have signed the Pledge for Palestine is available here:
https://www.votepalestine.co.uk/councillor-pledges-signatures
Type in your postcode and you will see all the candidates who have signed the Pledge who will be on your ballot paper.
You can also view all of the candidates who have signed the Pledge in any given electoral area.
(We have been made aware that a small number of current Councillors who are seeking re-election have signed the Pledge but were not supportive of recent divestment campaigns, so you may wish to do some further research when reviewing the Pledge signatories.)
UKPALMHN Solidarity Spaces
Monday 11 and 18 May at 1pm (UK time)
There will not be a meeting on Monday 25 May (UK Bank Holiday)
This is an open space where people share their emotional responses with a view to remaining resilient amidst a constant stream of distressing news.
Please email ukpalmhn@ gmail.com if you would like to attend this meeting
National March for Palestine: Nakba 78
United against Tommy Robinson and the far right
Date: Saturday 16 May at 12 Noon
Location: Exhibition Road, London SW7 2DB
“On Saturday May 16th we need everyone who can make it to be in London for this crucial demonstration. We will march to commemorate the Nakba – for 78 years, Palestinians have been subjected to a racist system of oppression including ethnic cleansing, settler-colonialism, apartheid and genocide. We march to reaffirm our commitment to the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the refugees’ right to return home. We march against the far right in Britain who glorify Israel’s racism and brutality.”
https://palestinecampaign.org/events/nakba-78-march-for-palestine-2
Statement by PSC in the wake of the horrific antisemitic attack in Golders Green
https://palestinecampaign.org/the-right-to-protest-is-a-fundamental-freedom
The UK-Palestine Mental Health Network banner will be at the march and all are welcome to join us.
We will assemble at 12 noon at South Kensington tube station at street level opposite the Thurloe Street exit from the station.
(Do not follow the underground walkway from the station but instead exit the station).
It is about a 10 minute walk from here to the starting point of the march.
Silent suffering: Why children in Gaza are losing their ability to speak
Source: Al-Jazeera
Date: 24 April
The article reports that increasing numbers of children in Gaza are developing speech loss or severe speech difficulties, which clinicians attribute to prolonged exposure to trauma, fear, and extreme stress during the ongoing war. Health professionals describe this as a psychological response linked to shock and anxiety, warning that limited access to treatment and continuing instability are likely to worsen long-term mental health outcomes.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/4/24/silent-suffering-why-children-in-gaza-are-losing-their-ability-to-speak
This is not a ceasefire
Source: Dr Ezzideen on Instagram (scroll through the images for the full story)
Date: 1 May
A Gaza-based doctor describes ongoing conditions during the ceasefire period, reporting cases of patients being bitten by rats and framing the situation as a continuation of war in altered form. The post conveys fear and deteriorating living conditions, noting that “rats roam the camp at night,” leaving residents unable to sleep and living in constant anxiety alongside wider deprivation and disease.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DXsL-dYCFvm/?img_index=1
Rats infest Gaza’s tent camps, biting children and spreading disease
Source: Reuters
Date: 30 April
Rats and parasites are spreading through Gaza’s tent camps for displaced Palestinians, biting children’s fingers and toes as they sleep, gnawing through people’s few remaining treasured possessions, and spreading disease.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/rats-infest-gazas-tent-camps-biting-children-spreading-disease-2026-04-30
Dispatches from Catastrophe
Source: Jewish Currents
Date: Spring 2026
There is an introducion by Tareq Baconi, president of the board of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network
The article presents a series of follow-up interviews conducted in late 2025 with Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank who had previously been interviewed by Jewish Currents, documenting how their lives have changed since October 2023. It conveys a range of reflections marked by grief, disillusionment, and divergent political views, while also noting the absence of voices from those who have been killed during the period covered, as well as those unable to speak due to imprisonment or surveillance. The piece offers a moving and emotional portrayal of the lived realities, losses, and suffering of the Palestinian interviewees.
https://jewishcurrents.org/dispatches-from-catastrophe
All they will find is sand
Source: London Review of Books
Date: 23 April
Eyal Weizman analyses the destruction of Gaza through the framework of genocide, focusing on the deliberate degradation of the built and natural environment, including homes, hospitals, agriculture, water systems, schools and cultural infrastructure. The article argues that the “Yellow Line” and associated military infrastructure are becoming instruments of occupation, while reconstruction plans risk further displacing Palestinians and remaking Gaza according to external political and economic interests.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n07/eyal-weizman/all-they-will-find-is-sand
Healing Under Occupation: Dr Samah Jabr on Palestinian trauma, resilience, and the limits of psychiatry
Source: The New Arab
Date: 23 April
This interview with Palestinian psychiatrist Dr Samah Jabr explores the psychological impact of occupation, genocide, detention, settler violence and chronic insecurity on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Jabr argues that Palestinian distress should not be reduced to individual pathology, but understood as a response to sustained structural violence, while also emphasising collective resilience and community-based forms of care.
https://www.newarab.com/features/dr-samah-jabr-what-palestinian-psyche-can-teach-world
Ethnic Cleansing in the West Bank: It’s even worse than you think
Source: Voices from the Holy Land
Date: 4 April
Recording of a YouTube meeting (the actual meeting starts at about 7:45)
Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man: former Editor-in-Chief, +972 Magazine
Mazin Qumsiyeh: Director, Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability;
Mai Shahin: Specialist, nonviolent communication and trauma therapy
The meeting discusses:
Settler violence and impunity: The speakers describe escalating settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, often carried out with the protection or inaction of Israeli soldiers and police.
Settlement expansion and annexation: The discussion presents settler violence, land seizure, movement restrictions and infrastructure control as part of an accelerating process of de facto annexation.
International responsibility and action: The panel argues that US and international support help sustain these dynamics, while urging action through BDS, divestment, advocacy, media work and protective solidarity.
Smashed pipes, blocked off wells: Taps run dry in the West Bank as Israeli settlers target Palestinians’ water
Source: CNN
Date: 28 April
CNN reports on attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian water infrastructure in the occupied West Bank, including damage to the Ein Samia pumping station, which serves around 100,000 Palestinians in more than 20 communities. The article situates these attacks within wider water inequality, settler violence and restrictions on Palestinian access to wells, farmland and essential infrastructure.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/28/climate/settler-attacks-water-inequality-west-bank-israel-palestine
Cafe Palestine 39: Introduction to a new music therapy-informed programme for music teachers in Gaza
A resource page and video extracts from the meeting are now available.
This Café Palestine session introduced a new online support programme for music teachers in Gaza, developed in response to the urgent need for practical ways to support children experiencing severe trauma. The initiative has been developed by the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, a leading Palestinian cultural institution, in collaboration with international partners. Dr Lukas Pairon, Chair of the Centre for Social Action and Music-Making at the University of Ghent, presented the programme alongside music therapist Hala Hamdan, who is facilitating the weekly online sessions. The approach is deliberately modest and pragmatic, focusing on shared reflection and practical techniques for observation and stabilisation rather than formal clinical training or trauma treatment.
FEATURED EVENTS
The Right to Health: A (US) Mother’s Day webinar honouring the Balata Health Center in Nablus
Date: Sunday 10 May at 4.30pm (UK time)
Source: USA Palestine Mental Health Network
The USA Palestine Mental Health Network is hosting a live-streamed Mother’s Day webinar in honour of the Balata Health and Youth Centre in Nablus, which serves more than 50,000 people and has reportedly been without funding since January. The event will highlight the centre’s role in providing counselling, group activities and stress-relief tools to Palestinian families, with donations invited to support its work and the mothers and healthcare workers who sustain it.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/SBwDQTDvSSOHsNfFSrU2Iw
Webinar with Gérard Haddad
Source: The Francophone Palestine Mental Health Network
Date: Saturday 30 May at 1pm (UK time)
Captions will be available in a number of languages, including English.
The webinar is a conversation between Gérard Haddad, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and writer and Georges Y Federmann, a psychiatrist from Strasbourg and an active member of The Francophone network.
“As mental health professionals, we are particularly sensitive to the function of language in its connection to truth, whether individual, social, or collective. Our political stance as citizens resonates, sometimes unconsciously, in the transference, and patients traumatized by violence are especially vulnerable to this. Untangling the threads of geopolitical, historical, religious, and ideological dimensions is an essential task, for which the work of G. Haddad offers invaluable support.”
https://forms.gle/dHqVvj6B4rNQPHr39
Who is Philemon? Who is Ka?
Date: Sunday 7 June at 5pm (UK time) (online)
Source: Stand By The Mother lecture series
Speaker: George Bright
This fundraising lecture in support of Palestinian mothers will feature analytical psychologist George Bright discussing Jung’s figures of Philemon and Ka, and their significance for understanding Jung’s psychology, worldview and later thinking on synchronicity. There is no registration fee, but voluntary donations are encouraged for the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, supporting mental health interventions for women and children, emotional healing, community rebuilding, and people in temporary shelters and vulnerable environments.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfyq49_svu4x2dDcnCdS5qzGoVc8sOWRwDmzo9OxHhmydlPjA/viewform
Mental Health Study Tour Autumn 2026
Source: UK-Palestine Mental Health Network
Dates: Monday 26 October to Wednesday 4 November.
This autumn we are offering a 10-day study tour for practitioners from the fields of mental health and social work who are keen to explore the complex interface between politics and psychological well-being in the particular circumstances of Palestine/Israel.
The tour provides excellent access to clinicians, academics, community groups and political analysts with 25 encounters, plus additional cultural opportunities. It will be facilitated by a small UK company established in 1999 that has provided alternative tours to the area. Hotels will be in Bethlehem and Nazareth with additional visits to Jerusalem, Hebron, Ramallah and Jaffa/Tel Aviv […]
Full details here:
For an application form please write including your name, address, contact information, and professional qualifications to:
ukpalmhn@gmail.com
BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS (BDS)
A founding aim of the UK-Palestine Mental Health Network is to “encourage our colleagues individually and collectively to consider their response to the Palestinian call for boycott, sanctions and divestment (BDS).”
Open Letter to the Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society (PCS) Editorial Board
From: 20 member of the Editorial Board
Date: April 2026
PCS is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Springer Nature.
The open letter explains that the signatories have advocated within the PCS Editorial Board during 2025 for the journal to adopt Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), noting that an internal anonymised poll showed majority support, but that the Editors declined to implement this policy or establish a dedicated BDS-aligned section and have censored references to genocide. The letter calls for Editorial Board members to publicly support BDS and for the journal to require authors affiliated with Israeli universities to include a specified statement acknowledging their institutional context, presenting this as part of a wider internal debate within psychoanalytic institutions.
Former UK envoys issue warning on Israel’s West Bank annexations
Source: Britain Palestine Project
Date: 24 April
Letter to the Financial Times from Sir Vincent Fean and 60 other former British Ambassadors and former High Commissioners
The letter argues that Israel is in breach of its trade and association agreements with the EU and UK on human rights grounds, and endorses calls from European officials for measures including suspending agreements, banning trade with settlements, and imposing sanctions—steps that align with key principles of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). It urges the UK government to adopt similar actions, particularly ending all trade with Israeli settlements and reviewing bilateral agreements, presenting these measures as necessary to uphold international law and avoid supporting the ongoing occupation.
Technofacism? Why Palantir’s pro-West “manifesto” has critics alarmed
Source: Al Jazeera
Date: 21 April
This article examines criticism of Palantir following the publication of a 22-point statement linked to Alex Karp and Nicholas Zamiska’s book The Technological Republic, including concerns about its defence of hard power, AI weapons, national service, and cultural hierarchy. It also places the controversy in the context of Palantir’s work with defence, policing and immigration agencies, and its support for Israel’s military operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/21/technofacism-why-palantirs-pro-west-manifesto-has-critics-alarmed
الشبكة البريطانية الفلسطينية للصحة النفسية 