Europeans in support of Palestine – Tens of thousands of protesters marched in support of Palestinians on May 15 in major European cities including London, Berlin, Madrid and Paris, as Israel’s worst violence in years rages on in Gaza by Israel.
In London, several thousand protesters carrying placards reading “Stop Bombing Gaza” and chanting “Free Palestine” gathered at Marble Arch, near Hyde Park, the British capital, to march towards the Israeli embassy.
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Crowds of people gathered along Kensington High Street where the embassy is located.
Organizers claimed as many as 150,000 people had gathered for the London march, one of several across the UK, although London police said they could not confirm any figures.
“The group is spread over such a large area that it is impossible to count them,” said a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police.
“This time is different,” Palestinian Ambassador Husam Zomlot told the demonstrators.
“This time we will not be denied again. We are united. We are fed up with the oppression.”
Simon Makepace, a 61-year-old accountant told AFP he had joined the protests because “the whole world had to do something, including this country”.
He criticized the United States, which he said was supporting Israel unfairly, and urged Washington to “make peace and stop what is happening”.
Azadeh Pyman, a 50-year-old scientist said that he was raised by his parents and grandparents for the benefit of Palestine.
“I think that’s a cause that will be passed down from one generation to another, until Palestine is independent,” he said.
Saturday night, two Leicester players, England’s Hamza Choudhury and France’s Wesley Fofana, held Palestinian flags after their team won the FA Cup final.
Across North America, in turn, meetings to show solidarity with Palestinians took place in cities including Boston, Washington, Montreal and Dearborn, Michigan.
Hundreds of people turned up in the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn, New York, chanting “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
They waved Palestinian flags and held placards that read “End Apartheid Israel” and “Freedom for Gaza.”
Meanwhile in Madrid, some 2,500 people, many of them young Palestinians, marched towards the Puerta del Sol square in the city centre.
“This is not war, this is genocide,” they shouted.
“They massacred us,” said Amira Sheikh-Ali, 37, of Palestinian origin.
“We are in a situation where the Nakba continues in the middle of the 21st century,” he said, referring to “catastrophe”, a word used by Palestinians to describe the creation of Israel in 1948 when hundreds of thousands of people fled or were expelled. outside.
“We want to ask Spain and European authorities not to cooperate with Israel, because in their silence, they cooperate,” said Ikhlass Abousiane, a 25-year-old nurse from Morocco.
The march comes amid the worst Israeli-Palestinian violence since the 2022 war on Gaza.
Thousands of people marched in Berlin and other German cities following calls from the Samidoun collective.
Three marches were legalized in Berlin’s working-class Neukoelln district south, home to a large number of people with Turkish and Arab roots.
Protesters chanted “Boycott Israel” and threw stones and paving bottles at police, leading to several arrests.
Other protests were held in Frankfurt, Leipzig and Hamburg.
On Tuesday, Israeli flags were burned in front of two synagogues in Bonn and Muenster.
Police officers used tear gas and water cannon in Paris to try to disperse a pro-Palestinian protest held there despite a ban by authorities. Europeans to support Palestine
Some threw stones or tried to put up roadblocks with construction barriers, but mostly police chased groups across the district while preventing a planned march towards the Place de la Bastille.
In Greece, police said about a thousand people lined the US embassy in Athens. Riot police used water cannon and there were minor clashes with protesters in front of the embassy, the AFP correspondent reported.
In Rome, several hundred people gathered near the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, carrying large Palestinian flags and chanting slogans.
“You don’t have to be Muslim to support Palestine,” one placard reads: “You just have to be human.”
In Tunisia, demonstrations took place in several cities. Hundreds of demonstrators wearing Palestinian flags gathered in downtown Tunis, before marching on Habib Bourguiba Street, watched over by police.
