PALESTINIAN-rights campaigners are launching nationwide protests on Saturday to demand that the British government impose sanctions on Israel over its illegal annexation plans. 

Dozens of socially distanced gatherings are being held as far afield as Orkney, Plymouth, York, Bristol and Brighton as part of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s national day of action. 

British ministers have been widely criticised in recent days for their weak response to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to start annexing around 30 per cent of the West Bank. 

Despite the flagrant breach of international law, PM Boris Johnson has merely urged his Israeli counterpart not to go ahead with the plans. 

PSC is demanding that the government take concrete action by “applying international law on trade with illegal Israeli settlements, and enacting sanctions, including by placing a two-arms embargo on Israel.” 

Ahead of the protest in Bristol today, organiser Helen Green said: “Annexation accelerates the colonisation of Palestine and will only deepen oppression and human-rights abuses against the Palestinian people while offering them no hope of peace.”

Protesters were urged not to gather in groups greater than six and to adhere to social distancing measures. 

The action is supported by dozens of rights groups and unions including Campaign Against the Arms Trade, Muslim Association of Britain, National Education Union (NEU), Stop the War Coalition and Unite.

It comes after campaigners staged a protest outside an Israeli arms factory in Oldham on July 1 ⁠— the official start date of the illegal annexation plans.

The factory, owned by Israel’s largest private weapons firm, Elbit Systems, has been occupied multiple times by activists seeking to kick the arms dealers out of Oldham.