Global rallies call for immediate cease-fire in Gaza
Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters once again took to the streets across the world to show their anger at the Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip and to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the Nakba Day - the mass displacement of people by Israel in 1948.
In London, pro-v protesters marched through central city on Saturday, reiterating calls for a cease-fire in Gaza.
The pro-Palestinian march was the 14th such event held in London since Israel launched its devastating war on the Gaza Strip on October 7. The Israel’s offensive has killed more than 35,000 people – mostly women and children.
In the US, police have beaten and arrested several demonstrators at a pro-Palestine protest in New York’s Brooklyn in the latest crackdown on voices speaking against the war on Gaza in the United States. Protesters gathered on Saturday in the Bay Ridge neighborhood in southwest Brooklyn, home to a large Muslim community, including people of Palestinian and Yemeni origins. The peaceful protest to mark the Nakba – the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 – went on for several hours amid heavy police presence, with officers trying to prevent a march.
“Protesters began to march in the street and shortly after, the New York Police Department came in from a side street and started grabbing people at random,” Katie Smith, a freelance journalist who was at the scene, told Al Jazeera.
“They were tackled to the ground and were often placed under arrest by multiple officers, who beat them, punching them on their upper bodies and around their heads. There were multiple waves of arrests during the march, which was peaceful.”
On Saturday, a crowd of several hundred people, including a number of Jewish demonstrators, also protested in Washington, DC under the rain to mark the 76th anniversary of the Nakba.
“They are Palestinian Americans and they are supporters, coming to the nation’s capital, chanting ‘free Palestine’ and accusing US President Joe Biden of being complicit in genocide”.
Also, thousands of individuals across various European cities, including Berlin, Munich Dublin, Rome, Madrid, and Vienna, rallied to denounce Israel’s war on Gaza.
In Munich, Germany thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators’ chanted slogans such as “Free Palestine,” “Free Gaza” and “End the Genocide”, while waving Palestine flags and holding placards and signs of Key, a Palestinian symbol of returning to homes lost in the Nakba in 1948.
Despite government restrictions against Palestine protests, Berlin held the largest pro-Palestine march since the outbreak of the Israeli war on Gaza. In Vienna, the capital of Austria, thousands of people gathered at the Cultural Square, carrying Palestinian flags and banners with slogans such as “No to Genocide,” “Israel is a Terrorist,” and “Free Gaza.”
In Italy, pro-Gaza protests were organized in various cities. Advocates organized a rally titled “Turin for Gaza” in Turin, as a group of protesters fired the flags of the European Union and US-led NATO during the protest.