'Frightening and surreal': Palestine Action and a Saturday of mass arrests

On Saturday, 54-year-old Zoe Cohen sat in London’s Parliament Square holding a cardboard sign that read, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”, and waited patiently in the heat to be arrested under the UK's Terrorism Act.

Police were working their way through some 1,000 people gathered there, displaying the same sign. When her turn came, she didn’t budge.

“Something just told me that I just wanted to lie there and be non-compliant,” she said.

When a young police officer crouched down and informed her she was under arrest under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, she asked him simply, "Genocide is a crime isn't it?"

By that point, Cohen felt she had tried everything available to her to pressure the British government to do more to stop Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, which has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians since October 2023.