Three detained British activists who spent weeks refusing food have ended their hunger strike, citing a report that a United Kingdom-based subsidiary of a major Israeli weapons company was denied a UK government contract.
The Prisoners for Palestine group said in a statement on Wednesday that hunger strikers Kamran Ahmed, Heba Muraisi and Lewie Chiaramello ended their strike after one of their “key” demands was achieved.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
“Our prisoners’ hunger strike will be remembered as a landmark moment of pure defiance; an embarrassment for the British state,” the group said.
Several people affiliated with the proscribed group Palestine Action had refused food in UK prisons since November in protest of their detention and the British government’s support for Israel as it wages a genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.
The activists’ relatives and friends had warned that their prolonged hunger strike put them at risk of serious health problems and even death.
The Times reported on Tuesday that Elbit Systems UK, a subsidiary of the Israeli arms manufacturer of the same name, had failed to win a $2.69bn contract to help train British soldiers.
Citing an unnamed UK Ministry of Defence “insider”, the news outlet said the department instead chose to award the contract to a rival consortium led by Raytheon UK.
“The abrupt cancellation of this deal is a resounding victory for the hunger strikers, who resisted with their incarcerated bodies to shed light on the role of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, in the colonisation and occupation of Palestine,” Prisoners for Palestine said.
For years, Palestinian rights activists have called on countries to divest from Elbit Systems over its role in supplying the Israeli military with weapons used in alleged war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territory.
That includes the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where Israel’s military assault has killed more than 71,000 Palestinians since October 2023.
The Palestine Action hunger-strikers were jailed over their alleged involvement in break-ins at the UK subsidiary of Elbit Systems in Filton near Bristol in 2024.
The British government proscribed Palestine Action in June of last year under the country’s Terrorism Act 2000, making it illegal for people to join or express support for the group under penalty of up to 14 years in prison.
Since then, scores of people have been detained at protests across the UK for expressing support for the group in what critics say is a draconian crackdown on freedom of speech and assembly.
On Wednesday, Prisoners for Palestine said a total of seven activists had started to eat again after ending their hunger strikes.
British MP John McDonnell hailed the hunger strikers’ “dedication” in a social media post.
British prosecutors have sought to reinstate a “terrorism” charge against a member of Irish rap group Kneecap for allegedly displaying a flag of Lebanese group Hezbollah during a gig in London, after a judge threw out the case last year.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) launched a High Court challenge on Wednesday, arguing that a chief magistrate erred in September when he dismissed the case against Liam O’Hanna, also known as Liam Og O hAnnaidh in Irish, over a technical error.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
O’Hanna, who performs under the name Mo Chara, was charged with displaying the flag at a November 21, 2024, concert in London, breaching the United Kingdom’s 2000 Terrorism Act.
In written submissions unveiled in court, the CPS “submits that the Learned judge was wrong to find that the proceedings … were not instituted in the correct form”.
Kneecap – known for their politically charged lyrics and support for Palestinian rights – have said the case is an attempt to distract from what they described as British complicity in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The band has called the attempted prosecution of O’Hanna a “British state witch-hunt”.
“Today more Palestinians were murdered by Israel,” Kneecap wrote in a social media post on Wednesday after the court hearing.
“More homes demolished and more children dead due to cold and lack of aid not permitted to enter by Israel. That is the ONLY thing about this whole witch-hunt worth talking about,” the band said, denouncing the legal proceedings as “a waste of public time and public money”.
Kneecap supporters rally in defence of O’Hanna on January 14, 2026 [AFP]
O’Hanna was charged in May after a video emerged from the London concert in which he allegedly displayed the Hezbollah flag, an offence he has denied.
Kneecap previously said the flag was thrown on stage during their performance and that they “do not, and have never” supported Hezbollah.
The charge against O’Hanna was thrown out in September after a court ruled it had originally been brought without the permission of the director of public prosecutions and the attorney general, as well as one day outside the six-month statutory limit.
But CPS lawyer Paul Jarvis told London’s High Court on Wednesday that permission was only required by the time O’Hanna first appeared in court, meaning the case can proceed.
O’Hanna did not attend the hearing.
But his bandmate, JJ O Dochartaigh, better known by the stage name DJ Provai, was in court alongside the band’s manager, Dan Lambert, and its lawyers.
About 100 Kneecap supporters also turned up at the court to show their support, holding Irish and Palestinian flags, singing songs and listening to speeches.
There was another shocking exit on the hit BBC show tonight no one saw coming
View 4 Images
A much-loved player went from hero to zero on The Traitors tonight as she failed to persuade contestants to vote for traitor Rachel Duffy. So she instead went “kamikaze” and banished herself from the game.
In unprecedented scenes, former criminal barrister and crime writer Harriet Tyce, 52, was unable to convince the others Rachel was lying, and so urged them to “vote for me” and then take her advice once she confirmed she was a faithful exiting the game. The stunned players took her words literally and she left the BBC hit series with a massive 10 votes, having seemed one of the strongest remaining contestants last week.
Harriet told them: “What I am interested in is a win for the faithfuls. Now you can clear this up once and for all by voting me out and have me stand there and then I say that I’m a Faithful, at which point you will realise what I am saying has merit.”
After the vote she added: “Its a kamikaze move. I appreciate that. But I wanted to ensure you all knew who I really was. It seems to me that this was the only way I could get rid of any doubt over what I have said. I’ve given you the names, do not let this sacrifice be in vain. I am a faithful.”
The result means the two traitors, Rachel and Stephen Libby, survived another day. And like banished Fiona Hughes before her, Harriet lost her position in the game when she risked going head-to-head with the formidable game player Rachel.
Speaking afterwards, Harriet insisted she had no major regrets about her passionate speeches at breakfast and the round table which included revealing her real occupation and strong feelings Rachel was definitely a traitor, which some contestants felt was out of character.
She told the Mirror: “On the one hand, I’m gutted not to have got further. I haven’t won therefore I’ve lost so it’s hard not to see it that way, but on the other hand, I could not have asked for more action!
“I was given some opportunities there, I created other opportunities for myself and as I said, Faithfuls have very little control. In all of that I managed to find a way of fighting as myself and leaving on my own terms and I really don’t think many other people who’ve been through the game can say that. If I were to swap with being there in the final but being duped, I’d take my short-lived game any day.”
She added: “My game plan blew up but it is what they say it is… ‘Everyone’s got a plan until someone punches them in the face’. The idea was to go in as the nice lady with the jumper who was not a published author. Not too much on anyone’s radar – the invisibility cloak of the middle-aged woman and just try and keep my head down and watch what was going on.
“Unfortunately, because of Hugo, I was triggered into action there. I was then able to merge back relatively easily from that which surprised me because people weren’t being observant enough. They should have killed me when they had the chance.
“So, until the Smoke and Mirrors Mission, I think it was working very well, but it was hard to allow myself to be underestimated consistently. I didn’t really enjoy that even though I could see that it served a strategic aim. I think that with Smoke and Mirrors, it was just too irresistible an opportunity to let myself be myself properly and to stop letting anyone play me for a fool.”
After winning a prize in the Smoke and Mirrors Mission, Harriet was allowed to ask the Traitors two questions and had told them she was onto Rachel. But her over zealous accusations afterwards seemed strange and suspect to other faithfuls.
Referring to her decision to disclose information at breakfast, after she had been allowed to ask two questions, she explained: “I didn’t want the Traitors to have a single piece of information on me that I hadn’t shared with my fellow Faithfuls. You have very little control in that environment as a Faithful and I was bloody well going to control my own narrative and not give that to anybody else. People could choose not to believe me, but I was not going to leave anyone the opportunity to spread lies about me before I had told the truth.”
Asked if she would have done anything differently she said: “I would have tried to have been less emotional, but it’s almost impossible. I did the best I could with what I had; other people might have done a better job, strategically other people might have lasted longer but I’m still very proud of myself. I demonstrated integrity and as it turned out that’s something that’s really important to me.”
She admitted it had been a spontaneous decision to put her own neck on the line in the round table.
She explained: “It was halfway through after Matt made his accusation against me and I started to defend myself with some force. I was really going to give it a go and then I thought; you know what? I don’t want to do this. It was the first time I’d been under suspicion in two weeks, and I didn’t like the feeling.
“I was a very useful distraction for the Traitors, so I would be kept in this state of having my wings pulled off. It just became clear that the kamikaze departure was the way to do it. Suddenly all the tension left me, and it was a relief after so much high emotion.”
Harriet’s disastrous ending, when she also accused faithfuls Matthew and Roxy of wrongly being traitors, was a complete contrast to her heroic earlier efforts when she calmly explained at a round table that Hugo Lodge was a traitor. Her reasoning won contestants over and there had been delight when he was unmasked.
Looking back at that moment, she said: “It was a very exhilarating moment and something I realised in retrospect was the fact that I was fighting for my 25-year-old self who was a pupil back in the 90s dealing with male barristers of a certain age, some of whom were considerably less well behaved than Hugo. I think that I was taking one for the team and driving something I felt needed to be driven, and even though I knew I was putting a target on my back by acting in that way, I knew that it was the right thing to do.
“Me with my arms in the air – oh it was glorious. Such a good feeling.”
She said appearing on the series had made her realise she was “capable of more than perhaps I think I am”. She added “I need to trust my intuition because my god my intuition was on the money!”
Article continues below
Tomorrrow(Thursday) we will find out the result of the latest murder by the traitors. It was looking most likely they would try to kill Jessie, Adam or James but some of them had shields thanks to the Fountain of the faithful mission.
* The Traitors continues on Thursday and Friday on BBC1 and BBC iPlayer.
British champion Kristen Spours said she was “grateful” her father could see her perform a final time before retirement at the European Figure Skating Championships in Sheffield.
Spours says she will leave the sport this year aged only 25 after recently recovering from surgery following a spinal injury sustained last March.
Her performance in the women’s short program earned her a spot in the top 24, enough to send her through to the free skate to determine the medals on Friday.
Spours told BBC Sport her still-healing injury was stopping her performing some skills, and she had struggled badly with her mental health during the past year.
“I have really struggled with my mental health, especially getting back on the ice. Getting back has really proved to myself that I can still cope in a high-pressure environment.
“I am really grateful to have my family here. I am planning to retire after [the World Championships in] Prague, so this is the last time my dad will ever see me skate.
“My mum is able to come to Milan [for the Winter Olympics], but my dad has a health issue so can’t fly. I am grateful he can see me one last time.”
Digby and Vaipan-Law set for best European result
Getty Images
Earlier, home hero Luke Digby and partner Anastasia Vaipan-Law put themselves on course for their best finish in continental competition in the pairs event.
Digby, from Sheffield, and Vaipan-Law are fifth after the short program. Their previous best finish in European competition was 10th in 2023.
Given a noisy reception at Utilita Arena and performing to folk song Lighthouse by Patrick Watson, they executed an error-free performance.
The four-time British champions received a score of 63.98 points. The current leaders are Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava on 75.96.
Metelkina and Berulava performed to Bolero – the song used by Dame Jane Torvill and Sir Christopher Dean when winning Olympic gold in 1984.
It was a doubly impressive showing given the Georgian team only landed in the UK on Tuesday – the day before competition – because of a problem with their visas.
Despite performing with minimal practice, Metelkina and Berulava are ahead of Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin on 74.81.
The Germans are reigning European champions and heavy gold medal favourites but did not have a perfect performance, Hase putting her hand to the ice following a spin.
Wednesday’s short programs focused on technical skills, with the more artistic free skate to come. The total scores from both events will decide the winner.
British champion Kristen Spours said she was “grateful” her father could see her perform a final time before retirement at the European Figure Skating Championships in Sheffield.
Spours says she will leave the sport this year aged only 25 after recently recovering from surgery following a spinal injury sustained last March.
Her performance in the women’s short program earned her a spot in the top 24, enough to send her through to the free skate to determine the medals on Friday.
Spours told BBC Sport her still-healing injury was stopping her performing some skills, and she had struggled badly with her mental health during the past year.
“I have really struggled with my mental health, especially getting back on the ice. Getting back has really proved to myself that I can still cope in a high-pressure environment.
“I am really grateful to have my family here. I am planning to retire after [the World Championships in] Prague, so this is the last time my dad will ever see me skate.
“My mum is able to come to Milan [for the Winter Olympics], but my dad has a health issue so can’t fly. I am grateful he can see me one last time.”
Digby and Vaipan-Law set for best European result
Getty Images
Earlier, home hero Luke Digby and partner Anastasia Vaipan-Law put themselves on course for their best finish in continental competition in the pairs event.
Digby, from Sheffield, and Vaipan-Law are fifth after the short program. Their previous best finish in European competition was 10th in 2023.
Given a noisy reception at Utilita Arena and performing to folk song Lighthouse by Patrick Watson, they executed an error-free performance.
The four-time British champions received a score of 63.98 points. The current leaders are Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava on 75.96.
Metelkina and Berulava performed to Bolero – the song used by Dame Jane Torvill and Sir Christopher Dean when winning Olympic gold in 1984.
It was a doubly impressive showing given the Georgian team only landed in the UK on Tuesday – the day before competition – because of a problem with their visas.
Despite performing with minimal practice, Metelkina and Berulava are ahead of Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin on 74.81.
The Germans are reigning European champions and heavy gold medal favourites but did not have a perfect performance, Hase putting her hand to the ice following a spin.
Wednesday’s short programs focused on technical skills, with the more artistic free skate to come. The total scores from both events will decide the winner.
British champion Kristen Spours said she was “grateful” her father could see her perform a final time before retirement at the European Figure Skating Championships in Sheffield.
Spours says she will leave the sport this year aged only 25 after recently recovering from surgery following a spinal injury sustained last March.
Her performance in the women’s short program earned her a spot in the top 24, enough to send her through to the free skate to determine the medals on Friday.
Spours told BBC Sport her still-healing injury was stopping her performing some skills, and she had struggled badly with her mental health during the past year.
“I have really struggled with my mental health, especially getting back on the ice. Getting back has really proved to myself that I can still cope in a high-pressure environment.
“I am really grateful to have my family here. I am planning to retire after [the World Championships in] Prague, so this is the last time my dad will ever see me skate.
“My mum is able to come to Milan [for the Winter Olympics], but my dad has a health issue so can’t fly. I am grateful he can see me one last time.”
Digby and Vaipan-Law set for best European result
Getty Images
Earlier, home hero Luke Digby and partner Anastasia Vaipan-Law put themselves on course for their best finish in continental competition in the pairs event.
Digby, from Sheffield, and Vaipan-Law are fifth after the short program. Their previous best finish in European competition was 10th in 2023.
Given a noisy reception at Utilita Arena and performing to folk song Lighthouse by Patrick Watson, they executed an error-free performance.
The four-time British champions received a score of 63.98 points. The current leaders are Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava on 75.96.
Metelkina and Berulava performed to Bolero – the song used by Dame Jane Torvill and Sir Christopher Dean when winning Olympic gold in 1984.
It was a doubly impressive showing given the Georgian team only landed in the UK on Tuesday – the day before competition – because of a problem with their visas.
Despite performing with minimal practice, Metelkina and Berulava are ahead of Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin on 74.81.
The Germans are reigning European champions and heavy gold medal favourites but did not have a perfect performance, Hase putting her hand to the ice following a spin.
Wednesday’s short programs focused on technical skills, with the more artistic free skate to come. The total scores from both events will decide the winner.
