Solidarity with Palestine at the World Cup in 2022. File photo: Supplied
I met Amu Gib in 2015 at SOAS, a public university affiliated with the University of London.
They (Amu’s pronoun) were one of the leaders of a campaign to end the mistreatment of outsourced cleaning staff at the university.
Other university workers who were employed directly by SOAS were treated much better: They received higher wages, had access to certain benefits and job security, and had formal recourse when mistreated. Yet, because the cleaners worked for a contracted company, the university could feign ignorance and wash its hands of this exploitation and abuse.
I recall Amu’s dedication to fighting alongside the cleaners, Amu’s genuine concern for their well-being, and how Amu was willing to risk their own privileged position as a student at SOAS to bring about change.
Our activism as part of the Justices 4 Cleaners campaign was effective. A couple of years later, the SOAS administration caved to their demands and cleaning staff were brought in-house, improving the lives of hundreds of workers. The hard work of activists like Amu, alongside that of the cleaners themselves, bore fruit.
In 2016, after graduating from SOAS and moving to New York to study further at Columbia University, I lost touch with Amu. Distance has a way of doing that: Despite the ease of electronic communication, it remains difficult to maintain active friendships across borders.
I was, therefore, only somewhat surprised to hear that Amu had been arrested along with dozens of other activists for allegedly destroying military hardware used by Israel in its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. I say somewhat surprised, because I know Amu to be someone who cares deeply about the lives of others, and that they are the type of person willing to risk their own life to oppose genocide.
The property destruction that Amu is alleged to have committed at the Royal Air Force (RAF) Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, as well as the destruction by other activists of Elbit Systems’ drones at its factory in Bristol, is claimed by the civil disobedience group Palestine Action.
On 5 July 2025, after the above operations, Palestine Action was labelled a terrorist organisation by the British government and thereafter proscribed.
This means that anyone associated with the group is now considered a terrorist by the state. This also means that Amu and dozens of other activists, who have probably never touched a gun in their lives, are being treated as terrorists, simply for taking action to stop (or limit) Israeli state terror against Palestinians.
As a result, they have been denied bail and held on remand for months while awaiting trial. Proscription means that the legal right to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty simply does not apply.
It also means that while in British prisons, they have been treated even worse than regular inmates, regularly punished for contrived infractions, and censored from communicating freely with friends and family outside. Their rights over their own bodies have been taken away from them, with almost every aspect of their life under constant surveillance and control.
Amu, Qesser, Heba, Jon, T., Kamran, Umer and Lewie’s decision to go on hunger strike should be understood in this context. When all your rights have been taken away from you, the right to choose what to put in one’s own body is one of the last elements of freedom you have left.
But Amu and their seven companions are also motivated in their hunger strike by other demands, starting with ending the flow of arms to Israel.
Here is their list. One: shut down the weapons factories supplying arms to Israel. Two: un-ban Palestine Action. Three: end the mistreatment of prisoners in custody. Four: grant them immediate bail. And five: guarantee a fair trial for everyone who has been arrested.
These are eminently reasonable and simple demands for things that the British government should already be doing. And yet, when it comes to Israel, the British government permits nothing but full and complete support for this apartheid state. Any substantive resistance to Israel’s legitimacy and British military support for its genocide in Gaza is criminalised.
So does this mean that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will just let the hunger strikers die rather than reconsider its military support for Israel?
Some might argue that voluntarily refusing food is their free choice and the government bears no responsibility for this act. Yet, this social media talking point ignores the context of apartheid and genocide and the United Kingdom’s direct complicity in these crimes.
Beyond allowing Elbit Systems to manufacture on its soil the drones Israel uses in Gaza, the British Royal Air Force also facilitates daily surveillance flights over Gaza, providing Israel with the intelligence necessary to continue its genocide. And this does not even take into account the criminalisation of activists in Britain.
In the UK, you can be arrested simply for using the word “intifada” — Arabic for uprising/rebellion — something that any colonised people have the right by international law to do.
You can even be arrested for holding up a sign that says “I support Palestine Action”. Indeed, in the past few months since its proscription, at least 2 489 people have been arrested merely for expressing such support. As recently as Tuesday, activist Greta Thunberg was arrested simply for holding up a sign that said, “I support Palestine Action Prisoners. I oppose genocide.”
This draconian policing of language has created a farcical situation where police have had to judge what kinds of speech are illegal, leading even to the comical arrest of protesters wearing shirts that say “Plasticine Action”.
It is clear, then, that civil rights — including freedom of speech — no longer apply in the UK when it comes to criticism of Israel. It is in these dire circumstances, where the genocide is ongoing despite the so-called ceasefire, that going on hunger strike is not only justifiable, but a necessary act of defiance against tyranny.
We should all support the hunger strikers and call on the British government to immediately meet their demands. No one has to die. In fact, from the prisons of London to the killing fields of Gaza, hundreds of thousands of lives can be saved.
Jared Sacks is an activist and writer based in Cape Town. He has a PhD from Columbia University and is a member of South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP)