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🚨Novara Media is looking for temporary support within our social media team. We need a skilled news editor to work two days per week in October and November, and four in December.🚨
The role will primarily involve commissioning and editing short form news copy, but also providing more general editorial support to the section. We are looking for an experienced journalist and editor (min 5 years exp) with excellent news and political judgement.
Please send your CV to [email protected] ASAP with 'News Editor' in the subject line.
Charlotte England retweeted
A year into the Palestine Action ban, is anyone still shocked? @CharlottEngland explains how disturbing state overreach became the new normal.
Read the full article: novara.media/4eZcSSm
Happening now: Far right so outnumbered in Brighton that it’s impossible to even see them without climbing things.
Charlotte England retweeted
A Palestine Action activist gave a defiant cry after being sentenced to six years in prison for criminal damage with a “terrorist connection”, after smashing up an Israeli weapons factory.
Following her sentencing, Charlotte Head, 29, shouted, “In order to hear the birds, the warplanes must be silent”, referencing Palestinian poet Marwan Makhoul.
Supporters of the activists erupted into applause as Head and her fellow activists were ushered out of the Woolwich Crown Court.
Head, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona (Ellie) Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21, were found guilty of criminal damage in May after breaking into a factory in Filton, near Bristol, owned by Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit in 2024. Corner was also convicted of grievous bodily harm without intent. They were sentenced on Friday.
Head was handed a custodial sentence of six years less 45 days and disqualified from driving for four years. Kamio was sentenced to six years less 45 days. Rajwani was sentenced to five years and eight months less 45 days. Corner was sentenced to a combined eight years and eight months for both offences.
At Woolwich Crown Court on Friday Justice Jeremy Johnson said there was an “exceptionally high degree of planning and premeditation” in the case, telling the activists: “You sought to glorify criminality and vigilantism” by livestreaming and filming the raid. The harms caused were “exceptionally high” he said.
The judge found that there was a terrorist connection as the raid was aimed at “shutting down Elbit and ending what they regarded as British complicity in Israeli war crimes” and to “intimidate it into ceasing operations or cause the government to prevent it from operating”.
Throughout the trial the activists had tried to argue that they were motivated by a humanitarian desire to disrupt Israeli military operations. Justice Johnson found the activists’ motivation to be an aggravating factor.
Charlotte England retweeted
Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has posted footage of kidnapped Gaza aid flotilla activists being brutalised in detention.
Soldiers have detained 428 people who were attempting to deliver aid to besieged Palestinians on 50 boats.
Two organisers – Saif Abukeshek and Thiago Ávila – were abducted near Greece around three weeks ago and subjected to torture that included beatings, being held in extreme cold and being subject to death threats.
Among those detained in the most recent round of illegal interceptions this week is Margaret Connolly, the sister of Ireland’s president, Catherine Connolly.
Charlotte England retweeted
BREAKING: A court will seek to sentence four Palestine Action activists found guilty of criminal damage as terrorists even though they were not convicted of terror charges, in a move kept secret from the jury.
Breaking: Israel has said it will release illegally detained flotilla activists Saif Abukeshek and Thiago Ávila after ten days of ‘torture’.
Shin Bet, Israel’s intelligence agency, told the activists’ legal team they will be released to immigration authorities today. They are likely to be deported next week.
Ávila, who is Brazilian, and Spanish-Swedish national Abukeshek, who is of Palestinian origin, were abducted in international waters near Greece on 30 April.
For more than a week, the two activists have been brutally beaten, subjected to “repeated interrogations lasting up to eight hours” and threatened with murder, lawyers and diplomats have said. Both are being held in solitary confinement under relentless bright light. Ávila was not able to attend the wake of his mother, who died of a heart attack on Tuesday, while he was detained.
Both men are on hunger strike, and Abukeshek has been refusing water since Wednesday, raising serious fears he might not survive until his next scheduled hearing on Sunday.
On Wednesday, the United Nations demanded the immediate release of the two activists, calling for an investigation into the “disturbing accounts of severe mistreatment”.
Before that, eleven nations, including Spain, Brazil, Turkey and South Africa, released a joint statement condemning their detention as a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”.
Responding to the news of their release on Saturday, the Global Sumud Flotilla said it was a "victory for solidarity".
"The world has risen once again against the blatant illegal state of affairs, amounting in public, political and diplomatic pressure to demand their release."
Charlotte England retweeted
Proud to have represented @novaramedia with @CharlottEngland at last night’s #AmnestyMediaAwards with the only shortlisted piece in ANY CATEGORY on the Palestine Action ban. Sadly we didn’t make the final four !
Thiago Ávila's mother died on Tuesday, while her son was illegally detained by Israel.
Teresa Regina de Ávila e Silva, 63, died in Brazil’s capital of Brasilia after years of illness, according to a statement from the Global Sumud Flotilla.
The statement described her as “a woman of remarkable joy and great strength”.
A post on the activist’s Instagram account, signed by his team, said: “We cannot begin to imagine how much this news will break Thiago’s heart when he finds out that his beloved mother has passed away."
Lawyers have said Ávila, and fellow activist Saif Abukeshek, are being tortured in Israel's Shikma prison.
Ávila is reportedly being subjected to “repeated interrogations lasting up to eight hours”. Interrogators have explicitly threatened him, stating he could either be “killed” or “spend 100 years in jail”.
Both men are being held in solitary confinement, under constant bright lights.
Despite no charges having been brought against either Ávila or Abukeshek, a judge on Tuesday allowed the state to extend their detention until Sunday.
The mother of a Brazilian activist who was kidnapped and reportedly tortured by Israeli armed forces has passed away while waiting for her son to be freed from detention.
Teresa Regina de Ávila e Silva, 63, died in Brazil’s capital of Brasilia after years of illness, according to a statement from the Global Sumud Flotilla, the activist group behind an aid flotilla to Gaza that was illegally intercepted by Israel last week.
The statement described Regina as “a woman of remarkable joy and great strength”.
It added: “She faced years of serious illness with courage, serenity, and dignity, driven by an unwavering will to live and surrounded by the unconditional dedication of her family. Thiago's two-year-old daughter carries her name.”
A post on the activist’s Instagram account, signed by his team, said: “We cannot begin to imagine how much this news will break Thiago’s heart when he finds out that his beloved mother has passed away.”
Israel illegally detained Ávila and another activist, Saif Abukeshek, in international waters near Greece early on Thursday morning as they attempted to sail to Gaza on boats loaded with humanitarian aid.
Lawyers have said Ávila has been severely beaten and threatened with death by interrogators, adding that Abukeshek has also been subjected to torture.
A court on Tuesday extended the detention of the two men until Sunday despite bringing no charges against them.
An Israeli state attorney has said the pair are suspected of several offences, including links to a terrorist organisation. Israel claims to have secret evidence to support these allegations, but refuses to share it with the activists’ legal team.
Ávila and Abukeshek’s Lawyers told the Ashkelon magistrates’ court on Tuesday that the allegations are baseless and there are no legal grounds for continued detention.
They noted that the interrogations have largely focused on the Global Sumud Flotilla, and that this suggests “detention is an attempt to criminalise humanitarian aid and solidarity”.
Eleven nations, including Spain, Brazil, Turkey and South Africa, have released a joint statement condemning their detention as a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”.
UPDATE: Israel's Ashkelon magistrates court just extended Thiago Avila and Saif Abukeshek's detention by SIX more days.
That means the eight-hour interrogations, beatings, solitary confinement and death threats - torture, essentially - will continue until Sunday.
No formal charges have been filed against either activist, and lawyers have not been allowed to see the 'secret evidence' against them that Israel claims to hold.
Charlotte England retweeted
🚨 Drop Site Reporter Aboard Freedom Flotilla on High Alert as Suspected Warship Spotted
Drop Site News correspondent Noa Avishag Schnall (@NoaAvishag) is reporting from the Adalah, one of four vessels in the Freedom Flotilla Coalition currently in international waters.
“We have three other boats — the Lina, the Tenaz, and the Perseverance — in front of us,” Schnall said. “Earlier today, we saw three drones and a helicopter. Now we see — or saw — two boats ahead. One we believe is a warship. The other appears to be a cargo ship.”
Schnall said the flotilla issued a mayday to the Greek Coast Guard and shared its coordinates but received no response. “We are on high alert all night,” she said.
Drop Site News is monitoring the situation in real time. Follow for updates.
An update on this, today: Lawyers have just reported that Thiago Ávila is being subjected to "repeated interrogations lasting up to eight hours".
Interrogators have explicitly threatened him, stating he will either be “killed” or “spend 100 years in jail".
Both Ávila and Saif Abukeshek are being held in total isolation, under constant high-intensity lighting. Lawyers say this is as "a known Israeli Prison Service (IPS) practice specifically designed to induce sleep deprivation and sensory disorientation."
Ávila has reported being held in extremely cold temperatures.
Both men are kept "blindfolded at all times whenever they are moved outside their cells, including during medical examinations".
Israeli soldiers beat and tortured flotilla organisers Saif Abukeshek and Thiago Ávila after abducting them in international waters near Greece.
novaramedia.com/2026/05/03/f…
Thiago Ávila has experienced Israeli detention twice before. But a letter he dictated to lawyers for his young daughter seems to suggest that he is genuinely afraid he might not get out this time. Parts of it read like a goodbye.
"Please remember your father as the person that would sing to you and play the guitar for you to sleep," he says.
"And when you grow up, your mom will also tell you that your father was a revolutionary and that even when facing the most horrific people alive - Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Itamar Ben-Gvir - he stood firm in the belief of building a better world."
Charlotte England retweeted
More than 200 activists on the Global Sumud Flotilla lost all contact with the outside world on Wednesday night, when they were attacked by warships, jet skis and speedboats full of heavily-armed Israeli commandos.
They were 500 nautical miles away from Gaza and close to the coast of Greece.
@CharlottEngland writes in the latest Cortado: novara.media/4vXSMjb
Charlotte England retweeted
BREAKING: The Israeli naval vessel that abducted the 180 Sumud Flotilla crews off the coast of Crete (an act of piracy and a gross violation of the Law of the Sea) is intend on victimising two of them: Saif Abukeshek, a Spanish citizen of Palestinian origin, and Thiago Ávila, a Brazilian citizen who has distinguished himself with repeated attempts to break the illegal, genocidal, Israeli blockage of Gaza.
Unlike the remaining abducted members of the Sumud Flotilla crew, which the Israeli navy disembarked in Crete, Saif and Thiago are detained and bound for an Israeli prison. This is a double violation of International Law: First, Israel abducted them illegally at sea. Second, Israel is now transporting them, violently, illegally, to one of its notorious prisons.
Meanwhile, the Greek government is cooperating fully in Israel’s criminal behaviour, effectively surrendering its search and rescue obligations and conniving with Israel to victimise the brave crews of the Sumud Flotilla who are steadfastly, through their activism, defending International Law as well as the verdict of the International Court of Justice which has clearly and unequivocally declared Israel’s continued naval blockade of Gaza and its occupation of the Palestinian territories illegal.
Through their complicity and their silence, the Greek government, the European Union, the mainstream media, the West more generally, are flouting, indeed they are trashing, their supposed, much publicised, ‘Western values’. Let us all demand:
· The immediate release of Saif and Thiago
· An end to Israel’s criminal behaviour in international waters
· The termination of Israel’s illegal Gaza blockade
· That the Greek government and the European Union cease and desist from lending logistical and moral support to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its ethnic cleansing campaigns in E. Jerusalem and the West Bank