LONDON: Thousands of people rallied Saturday in central London for a pro-Palestinian protest following police warnings that anyone showing support for the militant group Hamas could face arrest.
Attendees, who gathered near BBC News’ headquarters through the morning, began a march through the British capital ahead of an afternoon rally near parliament and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street office and residence.
Some displayed Palestinian flags and placards — bearing slogans including “freedom for Palestine,” “end the massacre” and “sanctions for Israel” — as they made their way toward the end-point for a series of planned speeches.
Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian mission in the UK, told the rally that the war in Gaza is indescribable and the official casualty count is already in the thousands, but expected the real casualty count will be much higher.
“Israel is indiscriminately bombing civilian infrastructure, homes, hospitals, schools, entire neighborhoods, even those fleeing the massacres are being massacred as we speak,” he told supporters.
“Over 70 people yesterday were massacred as they were trying to leave the bombardment. This is a war crime.”
He said Israel has cut food, water, electricity, and fuel supplies to every resident in Gaza, which has a population of over 2 million, and is leaving 1.1 million Palestinian children in the small enclave without power, water, food, medicine, shelter, and nowhere to go. “This a crime against humanity.”
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “Millions of people all over the world were demonstrating yesterday, today, tomorrow, and we will carry on demonstrating as long as it takes to bring about peace, to bring about recognition of the rights of Palestinian people that have been denied for so long.”
The rally comes as Israel intensifies its war to destroy Hamas’ capability, relentlessly pounding the Gaza Strip and deploying tens of thousands of soldiers nearby ahead of an expected ground offensive in the enclave.
Ismail Patel, chairman and founder of Friends of Al-Aqsa, told Arab News that “what we are facing is nothing new. 75 years ago Palestinians faced the same crisis: either stay in their homes and die or become refugees.”
He added: “Since the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the British government has perpetuated Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.
“We are marching to 10 Downing Street today to firmly convey that we’ve reached a tipping point,” Patel said. “We stand together, in our tens of thousands, demanding that the British government upholds international law and respects Palestinian human rights”.
Shamiul Joarder, FOA’s spokesperson said: “Today we’ve seen 150,000 people on the streets of London in a tremendous show of support for Palestine. The British government must listen to the people now: it needs to uphold international law and impose sanctions on Israel until it stops violating human rights in Gaza”
He added that “people of conscience from across the UK are uniting in London today with a clear message” and “Israel’s relentless oppression of Palestinians, and the British government’s complicity in this, must come to an end.”
Joarder demanded that the British government uphold international law and hold “Israel accountable for its illegal occupation of Palestinian land, persistent breaches of international law and documented war crimes.”
That follows last Saturday’s attack by Hamas, which saw hundreds of its fighters cross the Israeli border to take hostages and kill more than 1,000 civilians on the streets, in their homes or at a rave party.
Ahead of the London protest, the city’s Metropolitan Police Service said it would deploy more than 1,000 officers, as the events thousands of miles away reverberate in Britain and elsewhere.
Police and the government have noted a spike in UK anti-Semitic crime and incidents since the Hamas assault, while officers in Sussex, southeast England, arrested a 22-year-old woman Friday suspected of having made a speech backing Hamas.
A banned terrorist organization in Britain, its members — or those found guilty of inviting support for it — can be jailed for up to 14 years under UK law.
The Met said this week that general expressions of support for Palestinians, including flying the Palestinian flag, were not criminal offenses but reiterated that supporting Hamas is a crime.
Ferouza Namaz, 34, a student from Uzbekistan, joined the London protest, arguing that civilians in Gaza are “absolutely innocent.”
“Just being Palestinian does not give the rights to kill them. These appalling atrocities have been taking place for so many years,” he added.
Israel insists it does not deliberately target civilians in the Gaza Strip or other Palestinian territories.
But Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Britain, told AFP its response to Hamas’s attack was “dehumanizing Palestinians” and unfairly blaming civilians for terrorism.
He attended the rally to send “a message of solidarity to the Palestinian people, and particularly today to the Palestinian people in Gaza, who are under bombardment, who are under siege with the cutting off of all food.”
Jamal noted that those present were also conveying a message to UK political leaders, who he accused of “giving permission for Israel to commit acts of war crime.”
(With AFP)
