’14th major march in London since October’
The demonstration is taking place in White Hall, the heart of the British government, very close to Downing Street, the home and office of the prime minister.
It’s really seizable. There’s a real crush here. The organisers are claiming some 250,000 people [are attending]. It’s hard to corroborate those figures, but certainly, it’s a very sizable turnout. It’s associated with the Nakba, or the “catastrophe”, as Palestinians call it.
We’ve seen people carrying keys symbolising the right of return to their homes, and we’ve also heard those calls for an end to arms sales from Britain to Israel as this war continues, and repeated calls for an end to the war.
This has been a very diverse crowd by age, race and parts of the UK.
Pro-Palestinian supporters march through central London, on Saturday, at a demonstration to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the Nakba and call for an end to arms sales to Israel
Activist says pro-Palestine protests in London ‘wonderfully diverse’
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi says there is a considerable amount of “unjustified fear being whipped up among Jews”. “I find that tragic because Jewish people genuinely do have a long history of terrible persecution,” the London-based activist, a member of the Jewish Voice for Labour, told Al Jazeera at a pro-Palestine protest in London.
“I’m in this country because my grandparents had to flee pogroms … killings, and the elimination of whole communities in Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Germany at the end of the 19th century.” “So it’s very easy to awaken deep-seated trauma in Jewish people. And I’m afraid, apologists … for Israel really play on that. They whip this up quite deliberately,” she added.
“The idea that we’ve been told here in London, that these are hate marches, and that London is sort of a no-go zone for Jews because there are lots of people waving Palestinian flags, is simply untrue and it’s very unhelpful.” “What they’ve tended to do is to portray the marches as predominantly Muslim, and predominantly anti-Semitic. And neither of these things is true.”
Wimborne-Idrissi also said the protest was “wonderfully diverse”. “It’s people who do not wish to see a continuing slaughter of innocents.”
Thousands expected to rally in Washington, DC, for Palestinian rights
Thousands of protesters are expected to turn out for a rally at the National Mall in the nation’s capital in support of Palestinian rights and an immediate end to the Israeli war on Gaza. The event also commemorates the 76th anniversary of the Nakba.
Rally organisers didn’t apply for any permits from the National Park Service, which oversees the National Mall. In January, pro-Palestine activists flooded the National Mall in one of the larger protests in recent memory in the District of Columbia.
Demonstrators take to the streets in Israel
Videos shared online show thousands of people marching in the city of Haifa to demand an end to the attack on Gaza and early elections. Protesters held banners reading, “We want to stop the war” and “We want to have elections now”.
חיפה, התחלנו לצעוד!@GONENB1 pic.twitter.com/vYveLtZJGj
— מחאת העם חיפה 🍅 (@haifaprotest) May 18, 2024
Israeli police fire water cannon to disperse anti-government protesters
Israeli police blasted water cannon to disperse a demonstration on Tel Aviv’s Begin Street by hundreds of people. The protesters demanded the release of all captives held in Gaza, new elections, and for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign.
Demonstrators hold Israeli flags as police fire water cannon during a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on Saturday
