Five protesters arrested for disrupting filming of new Gal Gadot movie
Five protesters arrested for disrupting filming of new Gal Gadot movie
Demonstrators have disrupted filming at various locations across London in recent weeks, the Metropolitan Police said
The Met Police said that the filming was targeted 'solely because an actress involved in the production is Israeli'
(Image: 2025 Axelle/Bauer-Griffin )
Five protesters have been arrested after they targeted the filming of new Gal Gadot movie in central London.
Demonstrators have disrupted filming at various locations across London in recent weeks, the Metropolitan Police said.
The force said the film was targeted "solely because an actress involved in the production is Israeli".
The 40-year-old, who has been vocal in her support of Israel, is believed to currently be filming action thriller The Runner.
Police were deployed to a filming location in Westminster on Wednesday to identify suspects wanted in connection with offences at earlier protests and to deal with any new offences, Scotland Yard said.
Five people were arrested for harassment and offences under Section 241 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, which deals with wrongfully and unlawfully obstructing access to a workplace. They remain in custody.
Two of the arrests relate to incidents at previous protests while three relate to offences that took place on Wednesday, the force said.
Superintendent Neil Holyoak said: "While we absolutely acknowledge the importance of peaceful protest, we have a duty to intervene where it crosses the line into serious disruption or criminality.
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"We have been in discussions with the production company to understand the impact of the protests on their work and on any individuals involved.
"I hope today's operation shows we will not tolerate the harassment of or unlawful interference with those trying to go about their legitimate professional work in London."
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NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
Opposition to Gaza war grows among Israeli soldiers as strikes ramp up
TEL AVIV — Barely noticeable only a few months ago, opposition is growing about fresh Israeli operations in Gaza even among the country's military reservists, some of whom have publicly called out the government for what they say is an immoral and politically motivated decision to continue the war. 'I refuse to commit war crimes,' Yuval Ben Ari told NBC News earlier this month. 'The patriotic thing to do is to say no.' 'As an Israeli, as a human being, I'm calling the Israeli government to stop starving 2 million people,' he said, adding that he felt shame and guilt because 'people inside Gaza are starving to death.' As a reservist soldier, Ben Ari served two rotations inside Gaza, the first in the north of the enclave and the second in the south, and he is one of a growing number of former and current Israel Defense Forces personnel — including high-ranking commanders — who have voiced their concerns about the country's conduct in the war. This pushback has only grown after the Netanyahu government announced a major new operation dubbed 'Gideon's Chariot,' which began earlier this month. Over 12,000 current and former service members signed a series of letters since the collapse of the ceasefire in March calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to end the war and declaring they will refuse to serve if it continues, according to Restart Israel, an activist group that tracks how many people oppose the government's actions. NBC News has approached the IDF for comment about the letters. In a statement to The Associated Press after one of the letters was released last month, the military said it should be 'above all political dispute.' Speaking in Israel's southern city of Sderot, which sits a few hundred yards from the Gaza border, meaning the ruins in Gaza are visible and the sound of explosions and aircraft overhead are omnipresent, Ben Ari said he convinced the IDF to let him re-enlist after the Hamas-led terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and around 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Despite a leg injury, he said he felt he should join the army to protect his homeland. But during his first deployment in Gaza late last year, he said he quickly became disillusioned by the destruction he witnessed. Sent to southern Gaza when Israel resumed its military campaign in March, Ben Ari said he came to the realization that he could no longer serve in good conscience. So a week into his monthlong rotation, he said he asked his commander to be relieved of his duty and made his way to the border. As soon as he was back inside Israel, he wrote on social media, 'I will no longer wear this uniform under the current government.' While most of his friends and family applauded his stance, Ben Ari said, others called him a traitor and accused him of selfishness and abandoning the remaining hostages — criticism he said he expected. He later penned an anonymous article for Israel's highly respected Haaretz newspaper about his experiences. However, he is far from alone in expressing his disquiet after Israel shattered its ceasefire with Hamas in early March and imposed a blockade preventing food, fuel and medical supplies from entering Gaza, where Israeli attacks have killed more than 54,000 people since the current conflict began, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. The IDF would not comment on the number of reservists it uses or the size of its overall forces. 'They are not saying, 'Stop the war because we are tired,'' Guy Poran, a retired Israeli air force pilot, said in an interview at his home in Tel Aviv earlier this month. 'They're saying this war is not legitimate.' Poran, 69, who helped initiate an anti-war letter signed by almost 1,200 current and former air force members, added that Netanyahu, who is currently on trial over allegations of bribery and fraud, 'is deeply in trouble, indicted with very serious criminal charges.' Netanyahu has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the string of corruption probes. Netanyahu's political survival lies in the hands of his partners 'on the extreme right,' Poran said, referring to ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, both of whom have threatened to bring down the government if Israel agrees to a ceasefire with Hamas, while also calling for the total annihilation of the militant group and, more generally, the reoccupation and resettlement of Gaza by Israel. Israel, Poran added, is held 'hostage because of this blackmail.' NBC News has approached Netanyahu's office for comment. One of the letter's signatories, a major in the air force reserve, said they added their name because both the actions of the government and the way some ministers spoke freely about starving people in Gaza were not what you would see from 'a normal, moral government,' and they thought the ministers were 'losing it.' 'Somehow the military has to put a stop sign in front of them,' they added. Asked about concerns from some reservists that the war was being conducted for political purposes, the IDF did not respond directly. 'Reservists, who leave behind their families, daily routines, jobs, and studies to repeatedly stand in defense of the country's security and its citizens, are a central pillar of the IDF's strength,' it said in a statement. In a separate interview, a lieutenant colonel in the air force reserve objected to the resumption of military activities in Gaza over fears that Israeli forces 'will probably kill our own,' they said, referring to the 58 hostages who remain in captivity, although the majority are believed to be dead. 'This is a red line,' they said, adding that Netanyahu and his coalition were neglecting the hostages 'in order to preserve their own government.' NBC News agreed not to use their names because they feared for their safety and their jobs, although under Israeli law, employers must have a legitimate reason to fire someone and follow due process before terminating their employment. The army has nonetheless dismissed or threatened to dismiss service reservists who signed the letter, according to The Associated Press. Along with Poran and Ben Ari, both reservists spoke before Israel lifted its blockade on aid entering Gaza earlier this month, around three months after it began. The move was condemned by Ben-Gvir, who called it 'foolish' and 'morally wrong' in a Monday post on X. Smotrich and Israel's Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu have previously been criticized for similar statements. Poran said there was a growing feeling that 'it has become a revenge war, and that too many civilians are being killed, innocent, children, women, unnecessarily,' Poran said. 'Even the army says it cannot be a long-term solution' he added. 'If we occupy there, we have to take care of their food, of their health, of their school system, of their sewage. Who's going to do it?' 'You cannot just displace 2 million people,' Ben Ari said. 'It's inhuman.'
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- The Guardian
Worried about weed: should London follow New York and decriminalise cannabis?
The last time London dabbled in decriminalising cannabis, it brought one part of the capital to a brief but giddy high. In 2001, an enterprising Scotland Yard borough commander empowered his officers in Lambeth to caution rather than arrest those carrying small amounts of the drug for personal use – freeing them, according to the scheme's proponents, to concentrate on more serious crimes. The softly-softly approach was controversial in some political and policing quarters, but wildly popular in the borough – and some of its results were dramatic. Over six months, more than 2,500 hours of police officers' time were saved on processing cannabis arrests, while arrests for dealing class A drugs rose by almost a fifth. Non-drug crime fell by 9% overall, with sharp declines in burglaries and street robberies. Almost two-thirds thought it had improved relations between the police and the community. The Lambeth experiment would end after a year, however, after the man behind it, Brian Paddick, was transferred following newspaper allegations about his private life – later acknowledged to be false. Lambeth's residents may have been dismayed, organising public meetings and petitions to call for Paddick's reinstatement ('He's not a very naughty boy, he's the Messiah,' read one poster) but Metropolitan police plans to introduce the measures across the capital were quietly shelved. Almost a quarter of a century on, could decriminalisation be back on the cards for London? Sadiq Khan this week indicated his support, after an independent commission into cannabis regulation, promised by the mayor in his 2021 election manifesto, published its findings. Classifying cannabis as a class B drug was disproportionate to its harms, it said, and the sanctions users were subject to for personal possession 'cannot be justified'. Instead, the panel recommended, 'natural' (but not synthetic) forms of the drug should be re-classified, allowing Londoners to use small quantities without penalty. They did not, however, call for full legalisation: those producing or supplying the drug would still be breaking the law. The move, the report said, would have the important added benefit of addressing racial inequalities in the way the Met polices cannabis possession by stop and search. Black people are nine times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police, according to 2021 figures – but are no more likely to be carrying cannabis. 'It is clear a fundamental reset is required,' said the commission's chair, Lord Falconer, and Khan agreed: 'I've long been clear that we need fresh thinking on how to reduce the substantial harms associated with drug-related crime in our communities.' As both men know, however, the mayor has no power to change drugs laws in the capital, and the government was quick to slap down any such suggestion. 'We have no intention of reclassifying cannabis from a class B substance under the Misuse of Drugs Act,' the Home Office said in a statement. The fact that, 24 years after the Lambeth experiment, the debate over cannabis feels so familiar may be a feature of the drug's ambivalent place in British consciousness. Legislators may be immovable on the issue today, but cannabis was briefly reclassified as a less harmful class C drug in 2004, only to be moved back to class B five years later – arguably, the report suggests, for political reasons. The British public are broadly in favour of loosening restrictions – but not overwhelmingly so. A YouGov poll this week found 54% supported decriminalising cannabis possession for personal use, with 34% opposed and 13% unsure. Asked if decriminalisation would lead to more drug use, almost exactly the same proportion (42%) said yes as those who said it would make no difference (43%). While almost a third of people have tried it at some point, cannabis use is actually falling across England and Wales – particularly sharply in London, where the proportion of those aged 16-59 who had used the drug in the past year was 6.2% in 2022-3, compared with 14.3% in 2001-2. From a health point of view, discussion of the harms of cannabis is nuanced. 'If you're looking at harm at a population level, the vast majority of the millions of people who've ever smoked cannabis in this country since the Beatles have not come to any real harm,' noted Harry Shapiro, director of the drug information service DrugWise. But while most health professionals agree that a low or moderate use of the drug is likely to be minimally harmful for most people, others are anxious to emphasise the risk to a minority, especially from the much stronger forms of the drug that increasingly dominate the market. Dr Emily Finch, chair of the addictions faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych), said: 'It's obvious to say that many people with cannabis have no problems at all, but there are several circumstances where it can be incredibly dangerous.' Most seriously, for a small proportion, she continued, cannabis greatly increases the risks of developing psychosis, but even among other users, there can be other risks. 'People say – would tell you – that cannabis isn't addictive. There's really good evidence that that isn't true, and that there is a significant group, maybe 5% of cannabis users, who do become dependent on cannabis use.' In addition, she said: 'We need to understand that it's not helpful for 11- to 15-year-olds to use large amounts of cannabis.' About a third of people who use cannabis develop a problem with the drug at some point in their lives, according to the RCPsych. The drug's increasing potency in the market has significantly increased the risk of it causing psychosis and other harms, agrees Sir Robin Murray, professor of psychiatric research at King's College London. 'People need to know that cannabis, particularly modern cannabis, is a risky drug to take every day … Probably a couple of joints at the weekend is not going to do you much harm, but certainly daily cannabis carries an increased risk. If you take skunk-like cannabis every day, you're about nine or 10 times more likely to go psychotic.' Finch broadly rejects the suggestion that cannabis is a gateway drug to stronger substances, however: 'For some people, it might be part of a pattern of overall illicit drug use but I don't think that's necessarily the case. For many people, it isn't.' Perhaps the most striking thing about Britain's agonised discussions of its drug laws is the degree to which the country is increasingly an international outlier. In recent years, Portugal, South Africa, and Luxembourg, the Australian Capital Territory and many states in the US are among places to have partially decriminalised or fully legalised recreational cannabis use and, in some cases, permitted the development of a new, entirely legal market. 'Cannabis is a commodity, it is circulated in markets and has a supply chain,' said Toby Seddon, professor of social science at University College London, who has researched international models of regulation and advised Khan's commission. 'The question we have as societies is: how do you want to regulate this? For the last 100 years, we've regulated it through using the criminal law. And we've observed how that's worked and not worked. 'If you prohibit something, you're trying to reduce it to as close to zero as possible. And that manifestly hasn't worked because it's still really easy under prohibition to get hold of cannabis.' Which has led many other countries to try another way. Non-medical cannabis is legal in Canada, where the federal government controls production licences but each territory can decide how it manages its sale. In Uruguay, the first country to legalise cannabis sales in 2013 to counter drug-related crime, there is a state-run, not-for-profit model, in which the government issues licences, sets prices and oversees the potency of products. Germany legislated last year to permit individual consumption and cultivation, though critics say its implementation has been hampered by red tape. A similar critique has also been levelled in New York, where recreational marijuana use was legalised in 2021. For a measure of how far apart the UK and US are on this issue, it is striking to recall that Kamala Harris, three weeks before last year's presidential election, pledged to fully legalise recreational marijuana at the federal level if elected; Donald Trump too has said he would support the measure in Florida. Any move towards that position in Britain, let alone Seddon's suggestion that the UK should nationalise cannabis production and control its sale as a state-run enterprise, seems inconceivable at present, as he acknowledged. As a result of that, he said, 'you might think, this [report] is just a waste of time. 'But you could also make a case that these things, in the long run, contribute to turning the dial a little bit,' he added. A similar critique, Seddon pointed out, was made of a major study in Canada in the 1970s that recommended legalising personal use and was largely ignored by the then prime minister, Pierre Trudeau. Decades later, his son Justin steered a similar measure into law.
The National
6 hours ago
- The National
The UK's silence on Gaza will haunt generations to come
You could be mistaken for thinking I am describing some Second World War scenario, but depressingly, this is the reality in Gaza today. Despite repeated promises of a ceasefire, and a commitment to lift the siege of Gaza and allow aid to enter, Israel is still blocking food from reaching starving Palestinians. A UN spokesperson recently announced that only five trucks of aid had reached more than two million people trapped in Gaza, and even then, aid workers were not given permission to distribute that tiny amount. READ MORE: How much has your MP claimed in expenses? See the full Scottish list here According to The New York Times, over the past year, Israel has been in talks with private US security contractors, namely former CIA veteran Philip Reilly, to create an Israeli-backed food distribution programme. In February of this year, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was established with the backing of the Trump administration. United Nations aid expert Tom Fletcher said that the GHF makes aid conditional on Israel's political and military aims, and 'makes starvation a bargaining chip'. The former head of GHF resigned last week citing the foundation's inability to uphold the core humanitarian principles of 'neutrality, impartiality and independence'. According to The New York Times, the GHF emerged from 'private meetings of like-minded officials, military officers and businesspeople with close ties to the Israeli government'. It is therefore very convenient that the GHF, supported by Israel, uses biometric screening, including facial recognition, to vet who receives aid. Critics also warn that the GHF's decision to concentrate aid in southern Gaza serves as a further attempt to depopulate northern Gaza, as planned by the Israeli military. The GHF's lack of experience and capacity to deliver aid to more than two million Palestinians was laid bare on its very first day of operation. We saw images of thousands of starving Palestinians rushing to try to reach food, after three months of Israeli-imposed starvation. Those lucky enough to access food went on to discover there was only enough for a couple of days at most. What began as a retaliatory campaign, after Hamas killed around 1200 Israelis and kidnapped 250 more, has since turned to genocide. As it stands, Israel has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians – of which nearly 20,000 were children. Almost all of Gaza's homes have been damaged or destroyed, alongside 80% of facilities, 88% of school buildings and 70% of road networks and cropland. 222 journalists have been killed since the October 7 attack, of which 217 were Palestinian. The disproportionate response from Israel and the continual breaking of international law means it is beyond doubt that Israeli actions are a deliberate military attempt to seize more Palestinian land. Israel places evacuation orders on areas it plans to bomb, only to issue further evacuation orders to the places people have been displaced to. READ MORE: MSP demands answers from Police Scotland over Kneecap 'security concerns' Most people in Gaza have moved repeatedly in attempts to escape Israeli airstrikes, though no part of Gaza has been spared attacks. The Israeli military has issued more than 65 evacuation orders since October 7, 2023, leaving about 80% of the Gaza Strip under active evacuation orders. Following this, Israel has authorised 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank. This is despite the International Court of Justice ruling that Israel's settlement policy is a direct breach of international law. Israel Katz, the country's defence minister, said the decision to expand these illegal settlements 'strengthens our hold on Judea and Samaria', using the biblical term for the West Bank, which is Palestinian territory. Israel's far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said: 'We have not taken foreign land, but rather the inheritance of our forefathers.' Breaking international law in the name of religion is exactly the kind of behaviour we would describe as extremism. Bombing innocent civilians who are sheltering in hospitals and schools, to the point of obliteration, can only be described as terrorism. READ MORE: 'Do something!': Question Time audience member in fiery row with Labour MP on Israel This Labour Government has contorted itself into knots trying to be everything to everyone. One week, the Foreign Secretary David Lammy suspended talks on further trade deals with Israel, only for the British trade envoy, Lord Ian Austin, to visit Israel the next week to 'promote trade'. The UK Government's continual reticence to speak out against this genocide will haunt us for generations to come, especially when compared to how quick off the mark it has been to condemn the Irish band Kneecap. The duplicity of this Labour Government's failure to act efficiently and proportionately in speaking out against this genocide cannot be forgotten. History will certainly never let us forget.
