Actions Bulletin - October 2026
- Register for ICAHD UK’s Annual Conference – new speakers
- Watch Jeff Halper’s October Update
- Read about Sweeping Demolitions
- See Report on National March for Palestine
- Note Diary Dates
ICAHD UK's Annual Conference
Empowering Palestinians in
Their Struggle for Justice
Date: Saturday, 17th October 2026
Time: 10:15am – 4:45pm (doors open 9:30am)
Venue: Wesley Hotel and Conference Centre
81-103 Euston Street, London NW1 2EZ GB
Tickets: Members & Students - £15, Non-members - £20
A drink provided on arrival, bring a packed lunch
Registrations close at noon on Thursday, 15th October
ICAHD UK conferences are about equipping civil society for actions that make a difference when campaigning. This year our dynamic programme will examine what can be done to empower the Palestinians as Israel moves to the last stage of implementing its settler colonial and apartheid policies over the indigenous population in historic Palestine. We will also address how to respond to the criminalisation of those who demonstrate solidarity for Palestinians.
We are thrilled to announce that two outstanding young Gazans will be speaking as they talk about their lives and how we can help empower them.
Hala Shoman is a prominent Palestinian academic, decolonial feminist researcher, and human rights advocate from Gaza.
She is currently a PhD researcher in the School of Geography, Politics, and Sociology at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom
Hala is widely recognised for coining and advancing the academic and legal framework around "reprocide" (reproductive genocide) in the context of Palestine. She was a featured speaker in the final session of the Gaza Tribunal at Istanbul in October 2025.
Mohammed Usrof is a Palestinian writer and researcher from Khan Yunis, Gaza, working on energy, infrastructure, and colonial power. He co-founded the Palestinian Initiative for Climate Strategy (PICS), a Palestinian-led institute that centres Palestine within global climate politics and traces the energy infrastructure and supply chains sustaining occupation and war. He was lead research consultant for Oxfam International's COP30 report on energy inequality and is currently leading research for War on Want on the UK's responsibility for environmental harm in Gaza. He is also a PhD candidate at SOAS and his work examines how infrastructures such as fuel supply chains, grids, ports, and extractive industries function as technologies of power, shaping vulnerability, displacement, and resistance in Palestine and the wider Middle East. He has spoken at the UN General Assembly and at COP28 through COP30.
Also speaking will be:
Jonathan Coulter is the Secretary of CAMPAIN, an organisation founded in 2021 because of frustration due to poor media reporting that skews public understanding of major issues. Since October 2023, CAMPAIN has concentrated on coverage concerning Palestine – Israel. It has challenged the British Medical Association in support of Dr Swee Ang; spearheaded the Lambeth Witness Group within the Anglican Church; and is holding the Jewish establishment to account with questions about the Great Israeli Real Estate Event held at Edgware.
John Garrett worked as a lecturer in English literature and is now retired from that position. During his career, he taught in universities in the Middle East, Africa and Canada. Currently he works as an editor for a leading publishing house. John is a member of ICAHD UK’s executive committee and moved to that position following participation in two of ICAHD’s study tour tours and volunteering with us.
Jeff Halper is the Co-founder and Director of ICAHD, a former anthropology professor and a founding member of the Palestinian-led One Democratic State Campaign. Among his publications are War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification and Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism and the Case for One Democratic State. He was on the only boat that successfully sailed into Gaza to break the siege in 2008.
Jeff was a member of the Russell Tribunal and the Gaza Tribunal and provided testimony at the Gaza Tribunal UK. Jeff was nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize together with Palestinian human rights defender Issa Amro. This follows his 2006 nomination along with the Palestinian intellectual and activist Ghassan Andoni.
Rev Sue Parfitt was ordained an Anglican priest with the first women to be made priests in 1994. Her earlier professional career was as a family therapist. She helped set up the first Family Therapy Institute in the UK in the early 70’s after which she practiced, taught and wrote about family therapy. She worked in the Bristol and Southwark Dioceses and since retirement from paid ministry Sue has worked as a priest for climate justice and for Palestine, leading her to be arrested many times when confronting the evils of the fossil fuel industry, the Palestinian genocide in Gaza and the theft of Palestinian land in the Occupied West Bank. Her recent book Bodies on the Line discusses the role of civil resistance as a Christian calling.
Bruno Sorrentino of Palio Films is a UK-based documentary filmmaker. He began his career at the BBC in the 1970s as a film editor and has become a multi-award-winning Series Director, Producer and Director of Photography, working in UK & US TV, with credits across all factual television genres. Bruno also has extensive experience in producing immersive documentaries throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America, focusing on environment, development and human rights issues. Bruno filmed ‘Sumud – Rooted in the West Bank’ which was produced by Uri Fruchtmann and shown on Al-Jazeera. It tells the story of the Atta Jaber family and depicts the close relationship that Jeff Halper and ICAHD have with the family going back to 1998
During the conference a clip will be shown from the new feature-length documentary about the Atta Jaber family and settler violence, and our new website will be introduced. ICAHD UK’s range of resources will be available.
Advanced registration is required here
Jeff Halper's October Update
Palestinians - Actors Who Can't Be Ignored
The update begins with Jeff Halper referring to his recent visit to Umm al-Khair, a village in the West Bank, which is now close to being entirely erased. It is but a street surrounded by the settlement of Carmel. He reflects on how October 7th, 2023, provided the opportunity for Israel’s government to unleash its military power upon the Palestinians, firstly in Gaza and now in the West Bank. Its intense violence and suppression are enabling Israel to complete its settler colonial agenda of taking as much land with as few Palestinians as possible.
Jeff talks about how Israel is shutting down the olive harvest, a major source of income within the Palestinian economy and that with Israel withholding $5 billion in tax revenues owed to the Palestine Authority, salaries at not being paid thus Palestinians in the West Bank are impoverished.
Although Israel’s forthcoming elections will not result in any improvement, Jeff implores us not to give up. He highlights three openings that have presented themselves which mean that the Palestinians are now actors who can’t be ignored. Jeff ends by noting the significance of Navi Pillay being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the encouragement it brings to us.
Sweeping Demolitions of Palestinian Communities
Where is the Anger?
Photo: Al Dahiya - 12th October 2026 (AFP)
This month we highlight shocking stories from communities in Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills and from unrecognized villages in the Negev that are being demolished as Israel sweeps through areas to displace Palestinians, even amongst those who are Israeli citizens. Entire villages have been demolished but this activity is now so normalised that news media does not cover it, nor are governments doing anything about it. Take whatever action you can in your area and with your political representative to keep this issue front and centre of what is involved in Israel’s settler colonial agenda.
National March for Palestine
Three Years of Genocide
Around 250,000 people representing all ages and backgrounds converged in London on Saturday 10 October 2026 for the 37th National March for Palestine. The route took marchers from Victoria Embankment to 10 Downing Street, as demonstrators marked three years since the beginning of Israel’s latest assault on Gaza and the onset of the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Voices were raised in chanting, and groups of drummers and choirs also appeared along the way which added to the atmosphere. View our report to see scenes captured on the 10th and marvel at the creativity on display in the points participants wanted relayed to our government. At the end of the march, people gathered in Whitehall to hear speeches from the large platform as leaders in the movement highlighted actions being taken and messages to help equip civil society on the importance of remaining engaged in the struggle for Palestinian liberation
Dates for Your Diary
Saturday, 17th October – ICAHD UK Annual Conference, The Wesley Hotel, London. Register here.
Monday, 17th - Thursday, 27th May 2027– ICAHD Study Tour.
Many thanks for your ongong support. If you're not already a member of ICAHD UK, please join us or make a donation to enable our campaign to spread at this critical time in history.
From all at ICAHD UK.