Increase in the amount of people volunteering for Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Newcastle upon Tyne and Durham
Written by Bianca Burdulea on 20th December 2025
There has been a prominent increase in the number of people volunteering for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) in Newcastle upon Tyne and Durham following Israel’s continuous offences in Gaza after the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, 2023.
The Newcastle PSC has been increasingly engaged in acts of solidarity for the people in Palestine, such as peaceful protests, marches, demonstrations and fundraising in the city center. One of their representatives said that “generally, there’s been an increase in people getting involved in Palestine Solidarity in Newcastle since 2023.”
One way would be the amount of people following them on Instagram, which has increased from “a few hundred to over 12,700″.
This has also been the case for the PSC in Durham, which often engages in similar activities to show their support for Palestine. One of the organisers, John Metson, stated that their mailing list has “more than trebled in the last two years”. He added: “We had fewer than 300 people, now we have 900”.
Mr Metson has also added that the events post October 7, 2023, gave them “a whole new challenge”, now their task is to “harness and give expression to the huge revulsion that so many are feeling” and to “build a broad-based movement for justice in Palestine”.
The Middle East has been a conflict zone for many decades, on October 7, Hamas attacked Israel killing 1,200 people and kidnapping another 251. Since then, over 68,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.
Despite this increase, volunteering for this campaign can still be difficult as volunteers can be subjected to abuse for expressing their beliefs. One of the Durham PSC volunteers, Linda Mcdermott, says that she has experienced verbal abuse when handing out leaflets on Framwellgate Bridge.
For more information, follow @newcastlepsc and @psccountydurham on Instagram.
Credit: John Metson, Palestine Solidarity Campaign Durham
