Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched in London on Saturday, and police arrested 12 people on charges including inciting racial hatred and assaulting emergency workers.
Demonstrators gathered on Park Lane in the heart of the British capital, holding banners calling for a “ceasefire now” and chanting “Liberate Palestine”.
“People are very concerned that this is going to be another disaster on top of what’s already happening in Rafah,” John Rees of the Stop the War coalition told AFP.
“My hope is that we can avoid perpetuating this tragedy.”
The Metropolitan Police said 12 people were arrested, including two on suspicion of displaying anti-Semitic placards.
“A man with an anti-Semitic placard was in the crowd. When officers entered to arrest him, he was assaulted, resulting in the arrest of six people,” the force posted on X (formerly Twitter). did.
Two other people were arrested for refusing to remove their masks when required to do so, and another was arrested on suspicion of supporting a banned organization in connection with the placards.
Pro-Palestinian marches have become a regular Saturday event in London since Israel launched a military response to Hamas’ unprecedented attack on October 7.
The attack killed about 1,160 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli officials.
According to Israeli statistics, the insurgents took about 250 people hostage, 130 of whom are still in Gaza, and 30 of them are estimated to have died.
At least 28,858 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israeli retaliatory attacks on Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip’s health ministry.
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