Unwritten Lives

It has been 78 years since one of the most catastrophic events in modern times: the violent expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The Nakba, or the great catastrophe, is commemorated annually on 15 May. At Nakba 78, there is no ceasefire, no peace, no justice. There is only genocide, continued Israeli military occupation, and increasing conflagration across the region. In addition to the original Palestinian dispossession of 1948, Nakba commemorations also highlight the continued displacement, loss, and statelessness experienced by millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), in Palestinian refugee camps across the Middle East, and in the global Palestinian diaspora around the world today.

Ishtiyaq Shukri first travelled to the occupied West Bank in 2005. For twenty years, Palestine has remained a recurring theme in his writing. His work forms part of the vast catalogue of Israeli atrocities, appalling and unchallenged violations of international law, which over decades, have culminated in the genocide currently unfolding in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and the systematic erasure by Israel of Palestinians from the across the OPT.

For Nakba 78, we are republishing his 2005 travel journal, Palestine Journey, along with "...And 1 Can of Sardines", an extract from his novel, I See You, accompanied for the first time by photos from Shukri's personal archive from the time.

With heavy losses for the governing Labour party, and huge gains for the rightwing populist party, Reform UK, the results of last week's local elections on 7 May have reverberated through the UK like an earthquake. Here is what will happen next

During dark times, we must stand by our Jewish neighbours as generations of Londoners have done before us

Dear Home Secretary, We are writing on behalf of constituents in Crouch End, Haringey, who have asked us to raise concerns about remarks you made at a public event recently.

On Monday 20 April Shabana Mahmood told “white liberal” hecklers to “f**k right off”. Under no circumstances is this acceptable. With standards in public life in the UK slipping, community cohesion disintegrating, and democratic procedures eroding, Mahmood must be held to account for her abusive language. I have written to my local north London MP, Catherine West, and local councillors, calling for an apology from the home secretary, because everybody has the right to feel safe.

"Whenever I hear a Western pundit or politician go on about 'democracy,' I say to myself, 'Oh hell, give it a rest. Nobody’s buying that crap anymore.' I think that people serious about Palestine and decolonization more broadly react skeptically to the term because we understand it to be the vocabulary of our own dispossession."

Congratulations pour in from across EU, with leaders from Spain, Poland, France, Britain, Denmark, Romania, Sweden and beyond hailing a new chapter

Local elections have led to a surge of racism in a country that still struggles to see itself as anything other than white

Dear Home Secretary, We are writing to you with the utmost urgency regarding the reported upcoming performance by Kanye West at Wireless Festival in Finsbury Park.

Concerted dismantling and cumulative decline sum up the state of the rule of law across large parts of the EU and increasingly within the European Institutions themselves.