Pro-Palestine protests have erupted in London, Paris, and Bologna with demonstrators blocking roads and clambering up historic monuments as activists brand Israel ‘assassins’ after an airstrike on Rafah on Sunday killed at least 45 people.
On Wednesday, huge demonstrations were seen across France, Italy, Poland, and the UK as activists marched to voice their support for the war-torn country.
Thousands of French people stormed though cities including Paris, Lille, Lyon, and Strasbourg to show their solidarity, while large crowds gathered outside London’s 10 Downing Street holding banners and Palestinian flags.
Footage captured in France showed demonstrators brandishing the red, white, black, and green flags while donning keffiyehs and chanting ‘We do not kill a child, whether Jewish or Palestinian: Stop bombings, free Palestine’ and ‘Rafah, Gaza we are with you’.
In Paris, thousands of people gathered at Place de la République to display their unwavering support.
People rally in Paris on May 28, 2024 to show support to Palestinians after Gaza’s civil defence agency said an Israeli strike on a displacement camp west of Rafah on Sunday killed 45 people
People gather to stage demonstration as they hold flags and banners to show their solidarity with the Palestinians at the Republic Square in Paris
Thousands of French people stormed though cities including Paris, Lille, Lyon, and Strasbourg to show their solidarity
The protests in France began on Monday after the IDF strike targeting senior Hamas figures killed dozens of displaced Palestinians in Rafah
Footage captured in France showed demonstrators brandishing the red, white, black, and green flags while donning keffiyehs
In Paris, people we seen clambering up historic monuments while waving their banners and flags
A person holds a placard reading in French “This is not a war, it’s genocide” as people gather at Republic square in Paris
The mass procession travelled towards the Israeli Embassy while shouting: ‘Israel assassin, Macron complicit’ and ‘Israel get out of the way, Palestine is not yours’.
Francois Rippe, vice-president of the France Palestine Solidarity Association (AFPS) denounced the Israeli bombings on a refugee camp in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, which resulted in the tragic deaths of 45 people and left another 249 injured.
‘Palestinians were burned alive by Israeli bombings. This is one massacre too many,’ he said.
The protests in France began on Monday after the IDF strike targeting senior Hamas figures killed dozens of displaced Palestinians in Rafah.
One large banner at the rally showed presidents Emmanuel Macron of France Joe Biden of the United States and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the slogan ‘it is humanity they are assassinating.’
Political figures were also spotted in the crowds, such as Marseille MP Manuel Bompard, who tweeted: ‘Present at the rally in Paris, in support of the Palestinians bombed yesterday in Rafah’.
The protests today come as French President Emmanuel Macron called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
‘These operations must stop. There are no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian civilians. I call for full respect for international law and an immediate ceasefire,’ Macron said, adding he was ‘outraged’ by the strike.
Protests were also held Monday in Madrid and Barcelona.
In London, groups of protesters gathered outside 10 Downing Street to in response to Sunday’s airstrike on the tent encampment in Rafah – an incident that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a ‘tragic mishap’.
The protest was organised by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and saw tens of thousands of people displaying messages including: ‘Stop bombing children’, ‘All eyes on Rafah’, and ‘Massacring over 14,000 children does not equal self defence’.
Chants of ‘We are the people! We won’t be silenced! Stop the bombing now, now, now’ could also be heard ringing through the streets as demonstrators demanded an end to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
Pro-Palestinian supporters wave Palestinian flags and held placards as they gather outside Downing Street, central London, on May 28, 2024, during a ‘Hands off Rafah, End the genocide’ rally calling for a ceasefire in Gaza
Thousands of pro-Palestine protesters gather outside Downing Street following the Israeli attacks on Rafah in Gaza
Cops lined the streets as the masses of protesters blocked off roads in Central London
Demonstrators displayed messages including: ‘Stop bombing children’, ‘All eyes on Rafah’, and ‘Massacring over 14,000 children does not equal self defence’
The protest was organised by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign
Chants of ‘We are the people! We won’t be silenced! Stop the bombing now, now, now’ could also be heard ringing through the streets as demonstrators demanded an end to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza
The huge rally left usually-busy roads completely blocked off and unavailable for use as the large numbers of protesters took over the streets
The huge rally left usually-busy roads completely blocked off and unavailable for use as the large numbers of protesters took over the streets.
It comes just three weeks after Downing Street was surrounded by thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters following the Israeli seize of the Rafah border crossing.
Jeremy Corbyn and militant rail union chief Mick Lynch were among the speakers at the rally.
Around 5,000 protesters descended on Number 10 with placards from the Socialist Worker and the Palestinian Forum in Britain, which reportedly has links to Hamas.
Signs included those saying ‘all eyes on Rafah’ and others with the genocidal phrase ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’.
Bologna, Italy, also hosted a massive protest on Wednesday which saw demonstrators occupying train stations while demanding justice for Palestine.
Huge crowds of yelling people could be seen in footage climbing across railway tracks with Palestinian flags in hand – completely blocking the track from use.
The station’s platforms were brimming with protesters, while other spilled dangerously onto the tracks as they chanted and condemned Israel’s airstrike on Rafah.
Almost 700miles away in Warsaw, Poland, students gathered outside Warsaw University to announced negotiations with the university’s head Alojzy Nowak on discontinuing cooperation with Israeli partners.
They could be seen in images holding flags and speaking through megaphones while displaying cards reading: ‘Students for Palestine’.
The eruption of protests comes after Israel’s Sunday attack on a Rafah refugee camp that killed at least 45.
Footage captured the moment pro-Palestine protesters stormed a railway track in Bologna, Italy
Large crowds of people could be seen gathering at the train station that could not be used due to the numbers of people taking over the platforms and tracks
A student holds a Palestinian flag during a demonstration outside Warsaw University
A group of activist students announced negotiations on Tuesday with the university’s head Alojzy Nowak on discontinuing cooperation with Israeli partners
The health ministry in the Hamas-controlled area said about half of the dead were women, children and older adults.
Some people died from the impact of the bomb, while others ‘reportedly burned to death’, according to Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Barefoot children wandered around the charred wreckage on Monday as searches for the dead continued and mourning families prepared to bury their loved ones.
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in parliament that ‘something unfortunately went tragically wrong’ with the airstrike.
‘We are investigating the incident and will reach conclusions, because this is our policy,’ he added.
The strike came two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population had sought shelter before Israel’s recent incursion.
The airstrike was reported hours after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets from Gaza that set off air raid sirens as far away as Tel Aviv for the first time in months in a show of resilience more than seven months into Israel’s massive air, sea and ground offensive.
Earlier on Sunday, before the deadly airstrikes, aid lorries entered Gaza from southern Israel under a new agreement to bypass the Rafah crossing with Egypt after Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side of it earlier this month.
But it was not immediately clear if humanitarian groups could access the aid because of fighting.
Egypt refuses to reopen its side of the Rafah crossing until control of the Gaza side is handed back to Palestinians.
It agreed to temporarily divert traffic through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, Gaza’s main cargo terminal, after a call between US President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.
MAY 26: The Israeli military launched an airstrike on Rafah, killing at least 45 people
The strike whipped up a ferocious blaze that tore through a camp for displaced Palestinians in the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood in the city’s northwest
Palestinians observe the destruction caused by the attacks of Israeli army on tents of displaced Palestinians
A woman reacts as Palestinians inspect their tents after an Israeli army operation on an area previously designated by the Israeli army as safe for displaced Palestinians, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 28 May 2024
Palestinians inspect their tents after an Israeli army operation on an area previously designated by the Israeli army as safe for displaced Palestinians, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 28 May 2024
A Palestinian man and his children sit in a destroyed room following the targeting or a residential building by an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in the southern Gaza
The strike came two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in Rafah
But the Kerem Shalom crossing has been largely inaccessible because of Israel’s offensive in Rafah.
Israel says it has allowed hundreds of lorries to enter, but United Nations agencies say it is usually too dangerous to retrieve the aid.
‘With the humanitarian operation near collapse, the secretary-general emphasizes that the Israeli authorities must facilitate the safe pickup and delivery of humanitarian supplies from Egypt entering Kerem Shalom,’ the spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
The war between Israel and Hamas has killed nearly 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its count.
Around 80 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, severe hunger is widespread and UN officials say parts of the territory are experiencing famine.
Hamas triggered the war with its October 7 attack into Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seized some 250 hostages.
Hamas still holds some 100 hostages and the remains of around 30 others after most of the rest were released during a ceasefire last year.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel must take over Rafah to eliminate Hamas’ remaining battalions and achieve ‘total victory’ over the militants, who recently regrouped in other parts of Gaza where the military has operated.
The war has also heightened tensions in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
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