Pendle Palestine Twinning Group hosts visit of people from the West Bank

Visitors climbed Pendle Hill, met the Mayor, enjoyed a welcoming meal of Persian food and, later in the week, attended a public meeting with food, drumming and dancing, where they shared their experiences of human rights abuses in the West Bank.

The group of Palestinians included two residents from Beit Leed, which is twinned with Pendle. The group said their small town/village was recently attacked by illegal Israeli settlers.

Dave Penney, from Pendle Palestine Twinning Group, said: “There have been increasing attacks on Palestinian settlements and olive groves.

“The UN Humanitarian Office figures reveal 2,920 Israeli settler attacks took place between January and October this year. The IDF have also forcibly expelled 32,000 Palestinians from three refugee camps in the West Bank, earlier in 2025, under the pretext of stamping out militants – these displacements are illegal under International Humanitarian Law enshrined in the Geneva Conventions.

“Palestinians are separated from meeting each other by the illegal ‘Apartheid Wall’, and faced by an increasing checkpoints to stop them.

“Increasing occupation and attacks on Palestinians are all part of the Israeli Government's plan to annex the whole of the West Bank.

“Their Cabinet has recently endorsed this policy by extending the occupation and constructing settlements in the E1 area of the West Bank, which would effectively cut off the occupied West Bank from East Jerusalem and cut the territory in two. It would also sever any links with Gaza, where the IDF has created a northen military zone to cut off Gaza from Israel, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. This will make it impossible for a two-state solution, which Netanyahu has again ruled out.

“So where are displaced Palestinians supposed to go? We are witnessing a repeat of Nakba, the Catastrophe, with the ethnic cleansing and dispossession of homes and lands of thousands of Palestinians herded into refugee camps. But this time it will be even worse, they will be forced beyond the borders of a greater Israel, which will have taken over all Palestinian lands.

“The international community must stop this grave injustice, which is contravening the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We should stand up for justice for the Palestinian people in defending their right to live in their own land with freedom and in peace.

“As a sign of our solidarity with the people of Beit Leed, Pendle Palestine Twinning Group presented the two visitors from Beit Leed with a PPTG T-shirt and a candlestick, made from an olive tree in the West Bank.”

The trip was organised by Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association.