102nd vigil attracts strong attendance

November 2025

It almost doesn’t seem possible that for 102 weeks a group of people turn out of a Saturday evening to hold a silent vigil against the violence and death in the middle east most particularly in Gaza. Over 40 did so this Saturday (15th November) even with a number of the ‘stalwarts’ away for various reasons but their places taken by new people. A video can be viewed here.

Media attention has shifted away from Gaza for the moment and more attention is being paid to the violence in the West Bank. This has increased to frightening levels and news programmes showed settler gangs roaming Arab and Palestinian villages, destroying cars and houses at will. A BBC report showed an attack on a Bedouin village and business. There is little sign of police or IDF protection and previous footage shows them just standing by whilst the violence continued. Bizarrely, any Palestinian who protested would themselves be arrested. The attack on a dairy shows the same kind of tactic used in Gaza where the basic facilities of life – water, electricity, hospitals and food supplies – were consistently attacked and destroyed. President Herzog has said that this violence must end.

It is important to emphasise that many Israelis are appalled at this increased level of violence and intimidation. We are now into the season where olive are harvested and this has become a flashpoint in the West Bank in recent years as extremist Israeli settlers regularly threaten and physically harm Palestinian harvesters. This year, “the situation on the ground is out of control,” Anton Goodman of Rabbis for Human Rights said on a Haaretz Podcast.

“We have never seen anything like this,” Goodman emphasized, noting that in the past, “We’ve seen settler attacks, and we’ve seen unnecessary army aggression and restrictions, but we’ve never seen such a peak moment of violence affecting so many communities.”

By not clamping down on the gangs and standing by while the violence is carried out, Israel has created a problem for itself. Emboldened and supported by the hard liners, it is difficult now to rein in their activities.

Sources: BBC, AP, Haaretz

Video and image from the vigil courtesy of Peter Gloyns.

Next vigil on Saturday 22 November at 17:00 by the Library.

Previous posts:

• Good attendance at vigil
• Minutes and Newsletter, December
• UK Human Rights Report: Current Threats and Government Actions
• Analysing the Shift in UK Migration Figures: What It Means
• Death penalty report