It’s hard to say how many Palestinians there are in the UK. According to the 2021 census, there are around 5000 people born in occupied Palestinian territories living in England and Wales, however this does not include those born outside of Palestine. Many Palestinians in the UK hold refugee visas and have nowhere to go back to. If they speak out about the UK’s role in Israel’s war with Palestine, like selling arms to Israel, they’re afraid to be labelled as extremists, antisemitic, or even be deported.

The UK government has threatened to ban some pro-Palestinian organisations, and has referred to them as ‘terrorists’. Laws, such as the Public Order Bill that came into effect last spring, permits authorities to shut down any protest that can be considered a nuisance or too noisy. However, even if the country isn’t ready to listen, the Palestinians of Manchester are still finding ways to return power to the voices of their community.

Voicing the anger. Kiays story.

Kiays Khalil has a real Mancunian accent and speaks a bit through his nose. With fair skin, light hair, and blue eyes, he easily passes as English. “I’ve seen ginger blokes who are Palestinian, whiter than me,” he says, as his voice gets muffled by the engine of his car.

It’s Nakba day, an annual commemoration of the displacement of Palestinians that preceded and followed Israel’s state establishment, and he’s driving to the Manchester Football Stadium. Together with a Pakistani pro-Palestinian activist, he will hand out leaflets with a petition to suspend Israel from FIFA; as it previously did with Russia at the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine. Before getting out of the car, he gets his camera out of the trunk. “I'm from here and I still don't think it's safe to leave it”.

There’s a game on. Manchester United vs Newcastle United. A mass of football fans are heading towards the stadium. They’re moving through food and merch stalls, and a man with a magazine in his hand shouts: “Red news! United fanzine! Latest issue! Cash or card!” Kiays and the activists stop in the middle of the road and start handing out the pamphlets.

Kiays is a journalist. And he’s a Palestinian. Since October, he felt betrayed by the media and disappointed by their coverage of the war. “I would get shouted at: ‘You’re a baby killer!’ when walking with my keffiyeh. I was like ‘Wow, is this the UK? Where I get abused for this lie that’s been pushed by journalists like me?’” Kiays says, referring to the disproved viral post about Hamas beheading 40 babies. “In the headlines, Palestinians die, Israelis get killed. It had me questioning my career. And I took a big break to get away from it. But you can’t really escape it.”

Kiays knew protests all his life. When he was little, his mum would take him to the Iraq war protests. He joins Sudanese protests, and stands in solidarity with the protests of medical workers. “It’s a way to show the public and the government that something needs to be done because their politics aren’t working in that situation. If you put enough public pressure on a situation there’s no escaping it. It’s kind of like how now you can’t go anywhere without seeing a Palestinian flag. And if you can’t escape it, then you have to address it”.

Protesting for Palestine means something more, though. It‘s speaking out about a place he‘s been coming back to since his childhood and about the people he considers his own. Kiays is half British, and half Palestinian. Growing up he experienced racism and was ashamed of his background. Now he considers himself Palestinian first. His British mother’s effort kept the traditions alive in the family, and even though they’ve all scattered away from home now, her Arabic-style breakfast still draws the family back together on some Sundays.

Ever since he was little, Kiays has had to explain to people what Palestine is: “I’ve always had to explain why we’re not the bad guy, which is what we’ve been portrayed as by the media – the villains.” He has family in the West Bank, Jenin, and they’re afraid. They feel unheard. They’re not letting their children play outside, as it’s too dangerous with shootings. He remembered the scene his family witnessed this May, when seven Palestinians, including a teenage boy, were killed in an Israeli raid in Jenin. Kiays wishes he could visit, but the risk is too big. So, he speaks out in protests and on social media. “The government is trying to suppress that voice. They’re trying to criminalise protesting. They don’t want protests; they don’t want you to voice your anger,” he tells me.

It’s golden hour and the sun is finding its way through the clouds, and it starts to rain near the Manchester Football Stadium. More and more people stop by to take a leaflet or talk. In a crowd of chants and drunken banter, Kiays voice sounds determined, yet forgiving.

Generation of change. Zahra and Fady’s story.

Zahra Joudah’s voice is both hoarse and soft, and you can tell she is patient when she lifts her son Ayyoub off the ground for the twentieth time. He and his brother Yassen are learning to roller skate, and the oldest one, Youssef, is kicking around a football with their dad, Fady. It’s a sunny day in Alexandra Park and you wouldn’t think that anyone is carrying war in their hearts with weather like this. Zahra smiles when speaking about the pain she feels. “The hardest part is the guilt. But I just try to keep myself busy,” she says. They don’t go to the protests. Not because they’re worried about their safety – they would happily go – but their family in Saudi Arabia is scared for them, so they promise not to.

They moved to the UK in September 2022 from Saudi Arabia, because Fady got an opportunity to work and finish his training in emergency medicine at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. At the moment, Zahra is in the process of registration for her dentist certificate. Work and keeping themselves busy is a way to cope. The family is here on Fady’s NHS specialist visa but if they lose their visas, they would be separated with nowhere to go. But they say they don’t feel fear, nor do they think about it too much, and are careful not to scare their family.

Even far from home, their boys know their roots well. “We spent a year looking for a map that has Palestine on it to teach them, and we had to get an old one. Palestine is erased from maps now,” Zahra recalls, as they all sit in the shade. The children talk loudly about their home they’ve not had the chance to visit. Green, red, black, white – they name the colours of the Palestinian flag. That’s why Yassen picked a watermelon-shaped ice cream – a symbol of Palestine.

“Mine and Fady’s mothers told us not to tell them anything about the war. They’re scared that if they bring it up in school something bad will happen,” says Zahra. But the boys know and blabber about the situation, as they explain the occupation in their own words. Going back home and taking their children there is their dream. They hope to one day do it with a new nationality but, for now, they teach the boys about their origin as much as they can.

Fady and Zahra have relatives in Gaza, and they lost a lot of them in bombings. “No Palestinian hasn’t lost some member of their family since October. We are still expecting bad news from them all the time,” Zahra says.

As they speak, it’s apparent that this is the new normal for them and Fady is sure that their people are strong enough to deal with this. “It’s a mixture of emotions. You can say that they’re strong – and they are – but again, they’re human. They have souls and hearts. Their hearts are in pieces now. It has to stop at some point. Maybe not with our generation, but maybe with the next,” he says.

Ayyoub and Yassen fall and get up again. Fall, and get up again. They have a lot of energy, and their cheerful voices scare away the birds.

The world now knows. Rasha’s story

Most of Rasha Saeed’s family died when an Israeli bomb hit their house in Gaza. She cries, but her voice doesn‘t break, and she speaks of the love she feels for the world. She tries to help herself by dancing, singing, meditating, and running. She’s trying to learn Hebrew so she could communicate her feelings with songs. She does anything she can because she has to stay strong for her children. “I lost my family in this war. But if you ask me what hurts the most, it’s not the loss of my family. It’s the children and the mothers. The people who have nothing,” she says.

There are Lego blocks all over the floor of the living room. Her 7-year-old son Hamza has been putting together a very difficult boat. Block by block, he builds his own reality, while their dog Haydi looks after him. Rebuilding is a concept every Palestinian family knows very well.

Rasha and her husband Mohamed moved the family to the UK from Saudi Arabia five years ago. They wanted a better life for their children, to have better passports and be able to study what they dream of. Rasha describes that the feeling of home has been stripped away from them.

After the lockdown, they lost their residence permits. They still don’t have them. They have no country to go back to, and they still don’t have refugee visas. Mohamed is afraid for the kids. Their daughter Jumana is a public speaker and a Palestinian activist at her university. All of their other kids go to protests frequently. They’re scared of not receiving university diplomas (as in the US) and having their visas revoked, but Rasha supports them. She shares that it’s important to vent your feelings and she herself always wears a keffiyeh when going out.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breath after breath, Rasha helps Palestinian survivors recover from their traumas and she works as an online therapist for refugees from Gaza. “It’s silly, the things I tell them, I know. But when you see a lot of blood and a lot of loss you think that that’s the normal thing. And that’s why we try to focus on love. It helps us survive. We try to focus on the good things they have. If you just have one child, if you still have your legs – that’s good,” Rasha explains.

She tries to teach her kids the same. To imagine the Palestine they wish they had. To focus on the dream. To create their own faith, block by block. She quotes the Qur’an: “…and it was due from Us to aid those who believed.”

Hamza says he may be the first one to ever build a boat this difficult – it’s quite the task. He carefully picks out the correct blocks and chooses his colours with great dedication. Rasha remembers their first year here. Her daughter was 14 and they were talking about geography in school. And someone, pointing at the map, said before there was Palestine, now it’s just Israel. “And my daughter stands up and she says ‘I’m from Palestine. I’m Palestinian. We are still here.’ She felt really sad about that. They remove us from the map. And so, we go to protests to say that we’re here. You take my land, you take my nationality, but you cannot take me. And the world now knows.”