Tens of thousands stage anti-Israel rallies worldwide on New Year’s Eve
On the last night of 2024, as fireworks lit up skies across the globe, a large crowd gathered in downtown Tunis to send a different message, chanting, “No celebration while Gaza burns.”
“We chose to end this year by raising our voices for the Palestinians,” said Jawaher Shanna, a member of the Joint Action Coordination for Palestine, which organized the protest.
“They’ve faced annihilation for over a year, living in tents under relentless bombardment, while the world watches in silence.”
Similar protests unfolded in cities across Tunisia, including Sousse and Sfax, with activists calling for an immediate and lasting cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
Across the Maghreb, Morocco’s Tangier also held a significant protest on New Year’s Eve, urging Rabat to revoke its 2020 normalization accord with Israel.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people gathered on Istanbul’s Galata Bridge on New Year’s Day on Wednesday to express solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Demonstrators waved Turkish and Palestinian flags and chanted “Free Palestine” in the protest, organized by the National Will Platform, a coalition of more than 300 pro-Palestinian and Islamic groups.
Drone video showed thousands of people filling the bridge and the adjacent Eminönü and Sirkeci districts.
Pro-Palestinian protesters also took to the streets of Stockholm to call for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Israel’s war on Gaza continued into 2024, claiming 23,842 lives and wounding 51,925 people this year alone, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. These casualties brought the official death toll since the start of the conflict to 46,376.
Rights groups and United Nations legal bodies have accused Israel of committing genocide, citing its siege tactics, indiscriminate bombardment, and systematic targeting of hospitals, displacement shelters, aid workers, journalists, and designated “safe zones.”
“Our role is to stand by Palestinians, to amplify their voices, and to remind the world of their struggle,” Hicham Aadi, member of The Moroccan movement of Nosra, said at Tangier’s protest.
The Moroccan pro-Palestine group has also condemned the international silence surrounding attacks on hospitals and medical workers in Gaza.
For weeks, as fighting escalated near Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia, hospital director Hossam Abu Safiya issued desperate appeals for international intervention to halt the violence “before it is too late.”
On December 27, the Israeli military launched a major raid on the hospital, claiming it killed over 20 fighters and arrested more than 240 people, including Abu Safiya, whom they accused of being a Hamas operative. Since his arrest, the 51-year-old doctor’s whereabouts remain unknown.
The World Health Organization reported that Kamal Adwan Hospital has been out of service ever since — a catastrophic blow to northern Gaza’s healthcare system, where tens of thousands remain under relentless bombardment.