The Council finally responded to 4 years worth of nagging emails from the Twin Gaza campaign chair
After many emails to the Edinburgh Partnership and Edinburgh councillors, the Council finally responded when the Council’s Head of Strategy & Investment, Gillie Severin, got in touch with the Twin Gaza campaign chair, Pete Gregson on 30th July 2026. Here’s what she said:
Dear Pete,
Your emails have come to me as the Councils head of strategy. I know you’ve emailed quite widely so I’m hopefully going to be able to provide a single response. Thanks also for sharing background detail, you’ve had a fascinating career!
You’ve also clearly got a solid understand of how the Council operates and ways that decisions are taken. As you’re already aware, since 2019 the City of Edinburgh Council has operated a policy presumption against the establishment of any new formal twin city partnerships. This was primarily because the number of twinning arrangements were growing and we needed to keep it manageable. Councillors have to date not chosen to revisit this. Notwithstanding this, the Council is committed to offering its support to people in Palestine and Palestinians in Edinburgh. Page 8 of this report [see below*] provides a recent update on this work.
You’ve also asked about the Edinburgh Partnership attendees. There’s more detail here. Home – Edinburgh Partnership. Attendees do change, but if you take a look at the papers then you should be able to see the most recent members from each organisation. Councillor Staniforth did raise the issue at a previous Edinburgh Partnership as to whether there was anything the partnership could do in support of Gazan citizens, but at that time members did not have anything conclusive to take forward. If you have anything you would like considered, I’m the best officer to start with, but please note any decision would be taken by elected members.
Many thanks
Gillie
*Page 8 of the Report. From the Council website https://democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/documents/s86926/6.1%20V2%20Business%20Bulletin.pdf
Here’s how Pete responded:
Hi Gillie,
Thanks for your email. It’s good to know that there is somebody at Edinburgh Council who is prepared to deal with me.
I see from Linked-In that you joined CEC in May 2018. Therefore, you’ll appreciate a couple of things: the Chief Exec pushed the Council to cease twinning with other cities just a few months after I lodged my petition to twin with Gaza on 30 April 2019. Strange co-incidence, eh?
Also, I don’t see his argument of “too many cities” as good reason for stopping twinning, as many of those twinnings effectively ceased years ago (San Diego, anyone?). Some cities, like Krakow, Poland, are linked culturally rather than formally twinned. Here’s who Edinburgh is twinned with just now:
Just weeks after I lodged my petition, Edinburgh adopted sister city status with Shenzhen in May 2019. Even though Edinburgh adopted a moratorium on twinning later in 2019, it could still have agreed to sister city status with Gaza. But the Chief Executive was adamant this should never happen (see https://www.twingaza.com/is-our-chief-executive-dead-set-against-twinning-with-gaza/ )
Thanks for the link to the Business Bulletin on Palestine resulting from 27 June 2024 actions. I have a few points to raise:
- It said the Council had “Recognised and reaffirmed responsibility under the Genocide Convention to take all possible measures to ensure the Council is not providing support for states or corporations carrying out, legitimising or benefiting from acts of genocide.” Yet in June 2015, the Council Edinburgh council reject call for ban on Braid Hills weapons testing | Edinburgh Live, knowing full well that Leonardo at Crew Toll were making significant sums working hand in hand with Elbit, the Israeli “defense” technology firm, which has helped genocide Gaza. Leonardo was given a licence by the Council to test communications equipment in the Braid Hills in December 2024.
2. Your bulletin says the Council leader wrote to the Chief Exec of Lothian Pension Fund “encouraging them to consider removing any investments from companies involved in the Israel/Palestine conflict”.
Yet, if we look at LPF’s website, we see that all Pension matters are delegated to the Pensions Committee of the City of Edinburgh Council (as administrating authority for the Local Government Pension Scheme in the Lothian area), supported by its Audit Sub Committee. The members act as ‘quasi trustees’ and meet four times a year. The convener of the Pensions Committee is Councillor Mandy Watt, Deputy Leader. (Cllr Watt who told me in 2019 that Edinburgh should not be twinning with Gaza City, but with Tel Aviv, because, she said “they were more like us”.) In any event, are we really to believe that the Depute Leader has not told the Council leader that “removing any investments from companies involved in the Israel/Palestine conflict” will never happen, whilst he was busy penning letters to LPF seeking just such disinvestment?
The measly act of our Council leader just sending a letter to the Chief Exec of Lothian Pension Fund palls next to the decision by the Falkirk Pension Fund in 2018 to divest from Israeli Bank Hapoalim (which funds West Bank illegal settlements), but also their rationale for reaching that decision. The Scottish pension fund, which manages £2.3 billion in the pension funds for Falkirk, Stirling and Clackmannanshire Councils, sold off its £6m holding in Bank Hapoalim following an assessment by the Fund Manager that concluded the political and reputational risks associated with Israeli Bank Hapoalim were significant.
I receive a pension from Lothian Pension Fund and have written many letters myself calling for LPF’s divestment from Israel. Recently my local Councillor, Cllr Alan Beal wrote to me declaring that LPF is could not, as it is not an ethically managed fund and pensions business is conducted on a non-political basis. Yet Cllr Burgess noted in his motion to the Pensions Committee in June 2025 “that pension funds, while maintaining their fiduciary duty to secure financial returns for members, must also consider wider Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors, including human rights and international law, as material risks”. And so, the Pensions Committee “Therefore agrees in principle that Lothian Pension Fund will divest its holdings in Siemens, Caterpillar, and Lockheed Martin within a clearly defined timeframe.” But over a year on, it hasn’t, has it?
3. The bulletin notes that the Council has sent letters to The First Minister of Scotland and the UK Prime Minister urging them to:
-
- provide practical help to Palestinians travelling to the UK and Scotland
- recognise an independent Palestinian state
- support the upholding of international law
- call on the Israeli Government to comply with the rulings regarding violence
- reaffirm the UK Government’s commitment to upholding international law and to condemn any form of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of Palestinians.
I know a family from Gaza living in Morningside who moved here after the bombing started (their home was destroyed) in October 2023. They’ve been told by the UK Government they must return to Gaza by Christmas. The children, who attend Edinburgh schools, are terrified they will die in Gaza when they return, as Israel carries out frequent bombings of “suspect” Gazans by intelligent drones, using guidance systems developed here in Edinburgh by Leonardo. The father is engaged in remotely setting up wi-fi “co-operative working” hubs in Gaza to help Gazans communicate and gain employment with the rest of the world (see https://www.twingaza.com/why-twin/#using-the-net-to-beat-the-blockade ). The Israelis target these hubs in nightly bombing raids. It is difficult to imagine that this family mightl not be a target when they return to Gaza. Pray, tell me, what kind of “practical help might the Council provide” to this particular family, apart from a general letter to the First Minister, calling for practical help for Palestinians?
4. The bulletin boasts the Council has met and engaged with key organisations such as Hadeel, the Palestinian shop in George Street. Is the Council aware that Hadeel are facing a massive hike in rent from their landlords, the Church of Scotland, who are themselves impoverished due to falling church attendances? Might Edinburgh Council, with its huge range of properties across the city (which I know of, since I researched them whilst working in your Regeneration Team) not be able to give Hadeel a home at a knockdown price, given that, as you say, “the Council is committed to offering its support to people in Palestine and Palestinians in Edinburgh”.
You said in your email that I should note that any decision would need be taken by elected members. But since the matters I outlined above have already been through Committee, might these now be undertaken by an officer such as yourself?
That’s enough about the bulletin.
Edinburgh Partnership
With regard to my pressure on Edinburgh Partnership to act: you stated that I “asked about the Edinburgh Partnership attendees”. What I asked for was not a list of who they were (anybody who googles them will know that). But I most definitely do have measures I would like them to consider; if you are the best officer to start with, here they are:
- City of Edinburgh Council
If you look at the Gaza City Council website at https://gaza-city.org/ (ensure you have a translate extension installed on your browser, to read the site in English) you will get some idea of the needs of the city, who before the war had a staff a fifth the size of Edinburgh’s, catering for 600,000 residents, providing a far wider range of services (eg electricity supplies).
For discussions with those elements on the Gaza City “needs list” and how Edinburgh Council could assist, I can link you up with the Gaza Mayor’s office and Mohammed AlShaqra, the international officer there (mshaqra.mogaza@gmail.com), or the Mayor himself, whom Cllr Lezley Cameron spoke with in August 2022. The Mayor, Dr Yahya Al-Sarraj, did his doctorate in engineering at Bradford Uni and speaks excellent English.
See more at https://www.twingaza.com/why-twin/#about-gaza-council to get a picture of how the Council was in 2022, with its 11 Councillors; but some of the links are sadly no longer working. Hopefully they will come back as Gaza City recovers.
I really think a conversation between yourself and the Mayor’s office would be a good place to start in seeing how Edinburgh and Gaza City Councils could work together on “projects of mutual benefit”. There are so many areas in common- schools, culture, sports, fundraising for their artificial limbs centre, securing water supplies, waste collection and removal, media support- I’d be happy to set up such a meeting to build on any of these projects that you’ll find on their website- and more..
- NHS Lothian
The then Chief Executive was supportive to helping us back in 2022, when I worked for NHS Lothian. Dona Milne, the then director of Public Health and Health Policy at NHS Lothian, agreed to work on links with Gaza in Dec 2022; I put the Gazan Health Ministry in touch and their doctor wrote to her with their needs, but nothing came of it. One area I know the doctor asked about was in making pharmaceuticals, which are extremely hard for Gazans to source. (As you may know, many amputations have been carried out without anaesthetics.) I know from my own experience at Grampian NHS that hospitals are capable of making their own pilules and drips; might these skills not be shared with Gazan’s pharmacists, some of whom I’m in touch with? Can the Partnership ask NHS Lothian to renew their communications with the Gaza Health Ministry?
Whilst still an NHS employee, I asked the Chief Executive in November 2023, Calum Campbell, for help with this call to action that I’d received:
Gaza Medic Voices is trying to coordinate a remote telemedicine service for doctors in Gaza to get help with difficult cases through UK based consultants (second medical opinions) pro Bono. They need help with recruiting consultants who want to help with this.
They need the following specialities:
– vascular surgery
– trauma and orthopaedics
– plastics and burns
– paeds
– obsetetrixs
– radiologists – brain and body
– neurosurgery
Ideally consultants or associate specialists or post CCT fellows only as SpRs don’t think are allowed to do this sort of thing remotely.
This is their Instagram to get in contact
https://instagram.com/gazamedicvoices
Calum responded thus: “NHS Lothian will work with the rest of NHS to contribute via the UK wide actions of non-governmental organisations and charities. This approach is important in order that any input is appropriately coordinated and maximises the utilisation of staff time.”
I followed this up by asking : “Can you point to where the NHS-wide contribution is chronicled, as this is news to me? I would like to ensure that Medical Aid for Palestine (whom I have worked with on a few fundraisers) – and the Gazan Health Ministry (as you know, I work with them too) – know of this- they would obviously want to liaise.”
He responded thus: “There will be multiple NGOs but UK Med is the one that has a network of trained prepared clinicians. I have provided a link below that might be of help. https://www.hcri.manchester.ac.uk/connect/collaborations/uk-med-partnership/#:~:text=UK-Med%20is%20a%20non,epidemics%2C%20conflict%20and%20natural%20disasters”.
I felt this was not a very helpful response. I know from personal experience of 10 years at NHS Lothian working with consultants on their great appetite for IT applications to make their jobs easier that many NHS Lothian consultants delight both in working online and also that many have profound sympathies with the plight of the Gazans. Could the Partnership ask NHS Lothian to reconsider their unwillingness to explore this telemedicine idea?
More recently, I wrote again to the present Chief Executive, Professor Caroline Hiscox, on the 7th June. I pointed out that I was an ex-employee of NHS Lothian, now retired from the IT job I held there. I explained that I had been working with Gaza Sky Geeks (currently operating out of Jerusalem, as their Gaza City premises were obliterated) – who are funded by Mercy Corps (they have an office in Edinburgh). I mentioned how over the past five years I’ve been pursuing work opportunities with them, since due to the blockade, the only work that IT-literate Gazans (of whom there are many) can get, is online. I said I’d been able to get some UK businesses to get their website and design work done in Gaza. I explained I was writing to her now to ask if NHS Lothian might be able to get its IT staff to help with the Gaza Sky Geeks mentoring programme (details at https://gazaskygeeks.com/mentor/ ). What I was really seeking are unpaid work placements that would give Gazans some experience in working with a large organisation. I explained I worked in the TRAK patient information management system at NHS Lothian; although they do not have TRAK in Gaza, they have it in other Middle East countries, so work experience with TRAK would be helpful for Gazans seeking work online. The IT Dept at NHS Lothian manages many other software programmes, apart from TRAK, all of which would be of interest to Gaza health and IT professionals. I pointed out that any Gazan NHS Lothian agree to take on would be paid by Gaza Sky Geeks throughout the duration of their placement, a fantastic opportunity, given that most Gazans are unemployed, starving, but very well-educated.
I never even got an acknowledgement email from Professor Hiscox. Maybe the Partnership might ask her to get back to me?
In October 2022, I met Dr Khamis Elessi of Gaza, when to came to Edinburgh to accept his appointment as an Honorary Senior Fellow of the Global Health Academy at the University of Edinburgh. Dr Elessi works at the Elwafa Medical Rehabilitation Hospital in Gaza city, where he is a professor in the faculty of medicine, teaching the modules of neuroscience, rehabilitation medicine, health research and pain management. He also came to Edinburgh for a joint research and development project on palliative care and pain management services in the besieged Gaza Strip.
So- can you ask NHS Lothian if they might also consider a “mutually beneficial” project with Dr Khamis Elessi of Gaza whereby NHS Lothian gained greater knowledge in palliative care and pain management and in return they might train Gazan surgeons on medical techniques? All this can be done online.
Dr Elessi can be contacted by email in Gaza at khamis10000000@gmail.com and by phone and on What’s Ap at +972 59-986-8034. I can provide his bionote and the Edinburgh University letter of appointment on request.
Also, Gazan health professionals are also world leaders in prosthetics, thanks to the IDF policy of “aim to maim” – and they would be well-placed to share such information and skills with NHS Lothian staff. Again, could NHS Lothian be asked to see how they might explore “mutually beneficial projects” with the Gazan Health Ministry on this?
I would be very keen to assist in all the above projects.
- Scottish Enterprise and the Chamber of Commerce
I would dearly like some of Edinburgh’s banking and finance houses to outsource some of their IT work to Gaza. My ex-wife was the UK Delivery Manager at Standard Life for all their IT work that was sent to India. If just a tiny fraction of this work were to be directed to Gazan IT professionals (amongst the best and most well-educated IT developers in the world), think what a difference this could make? Could Scottish Enterprise or the Chamber of Commerce be prevailed upon to ask Edinburgh’s banking and finance houses to consider this idea? The cost savings to these companies would be enormous, as Gazans work for a fraction of what the Indians get paid. Again, Gaza Sky Geeks, who have trained thousands of Gazans in IT, would be just one on the Gazan bodies Scottish Enterprise could liaise with. (They are funded by Mercy Corps, the US charity with an office in Edinburgh.) The Gaza Sky Geeks director, Alan AlKhadi, has presently been exiled to London and is British; he would be delighted to speak to Scottish Enterprise and the Chamber of Commerce, should the Partnership agree to facilitate this.
- University of Edinburgh – The Gaza City Mayor was elected Rector of Gaza’s University College of Applied Sciences; he was also the deputy chairman of external affairs at the Islamic University of Gaza. He has served on a joint committee addressing financial issues across Gazan universities. All 8 of Gaza’s Universities have been destroyed by Israel, but they continue to function, albeit from tents and by renting some of the 10% of buildings that Israel has not damaged. The Mayor could outline to Edinburgh University how best they might help.
For our part, we were in touch with Derek MacLeod, Head of Global Partnerships at the University ( global.partnerships@ed.ac.uk) We pointed out that as the University of Edinburgh is a member of the Edinburgh Partnership, and as we were aware of the University of St Andrews’ STEPS initiative (https://stepspalestine.org.uk/ ), we asked if the University might consider developing a similar scheme, of taking Gazan students into the University with all expenses paid for a 1-year post-grad qualification. In November 2022, Mr Macleod responded to our volunteer, Dr Swanepoel, as follows:
Many thanks for your emails and sincere apologies for not replying before now. I had started looking into this when we first received your email but having reached out to some colleagues, I wasn’t able to get the information that I was hoping for that would inform my response.
While I’ve not been directly involved, I know that there has been a longstanding campaign by the Students Association (EUSA) – and some of their societies in particular – to support the Palestinian people, but I’ve been unable to identify the current status of these and/or whether these societies are still even active. I know that there were aspirations at one point for a formal twinning between our students and those at Birzeit University, in the West Bank, but I’m not sure again where that got to. The most recent note of anything related to this was in June 2021 and can be found here:
https://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/news/article/palestine
Anyway, thank you also for highlighting the excellent STEPS programme at St Andrews. I must confess that I wasn’t aware of this programme until I read your email, but I very much enjoyed learning about it.
We are committed to develop funding opportunities to enhance the access of international students – particularly from backgrounds that would otherwise find it challenging to come and study with us – and a programme similar to the STEPS programme would be something that we’d welcome. However, as is the case with many of these things, the main barrier is funding. Having looked into it, the STEPS programme itself is an independent charity that works alongside the University to provide the funding and support for their fellows and I’m sure it’s taken some time to raise the funding and get the appropriate support and capacity in place to make this possible.
The reason I was trying to identify where our student endeavours had got to, was because I thought that highlighting the STEPS programme to them might act as a catalyst for a concerted push to bring about some innovative thinking around this area, but I’ve been unable to find appropriate contacts at this time. That said, I will continue to pursue this with colleagues – across our Global Community team, our colleagues in Development and Alumni and also EUSA too – in the case that we might find appropriate people and/or groups to push something like this forwards.
Apologies again for the delay in my response and hope you have a good weekend.
Kind regards,
Derek
We never heard back from Mr Macleod again. Maybe the Partnership might prompt him to action?
Can you also suggest to the University that if they prefer to work in another field (Islamic studies or Arabic language or Economics are a few that would be easy)- then we could match them up with one of the Gazan Universities?
I’d like to reiterate that I would love to be involved in taking any of the above proposals forward. I speak only some basic Arabic, but I can provide you with Gazans who will be happy to assist you should you need help in communicating with Gazan bodies. Most senior Gazans speak good English. My contacts in the Gaza City Mayor’s office and in the Gazan Health Ministry would be delighted to deal with you; they all speak good English. I would be delighted to set up Zoom calls with any Gazan.
Again, you said I should note that any decisions on Gaza would need be taken by elected members. But Policy Committee on 30th August 2022 already took the decision to call upon Edinburgh Partnership to explore mutually beneficial Gazan opportunities, so again I feel that it is now in the hands of a senior officer such as yourself to take Partnership matters forward.
To conclude, I have copied into this email those councillors who are group leaders or whom I know from experience are interested in or support Palestine, along with the Edina-Gaza Emergency Committee, Hadeel and the Gazan father in Morningside I mentioned above.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Best wishes,
Pete
Chair of the Edina-Gaza Twinning Association