PARIS – Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators tough a halt to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza marched in Paris, Berlin and different European towns on Saturday.
The marches mirrored rising disquiet in Europe in regards to the mounting civilian casualty toll and affected by the Israel-Hamas war, in particular in nations with huge Muslim populations, together with France.
The Palestinian demise toll in the Israel-Hamas warfare has reached 9,448, in accordance to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. In Israel, greater than 1,400 other people were killed, maximum of them in the Oct. 7 Hamas assault that began the warfare.
At a Paris rally that drew a number of thousand protesters, demonstrators known as for an instantaneous cease-fire in Gaza and a few shouted “Israel, assassin!” In central London, streets have been blocked by protesters chanting, “Cease-fire now” and “I believe that we will win.”
Banners on a sound-system truck on the Paris march thru rain-dampened streets learn: “Stop the massacre in Gaza.” Demonstrators, many wearing Palestinian flags, chanted “Palestine will live, Palestine will win.”
Some demonstrators also took aim at French President Emmanuel Macron, chanting “Macron, accomplice.”
Paris’ police chief authorized the march from République to Nation, two large plazas in eastern Paris, but vowed that any behavior deemed antisemitic or sympathetic to terrorism would not be tolerated.
Multiple countries in Europe have reported increasing antisemitic attacks and incidents since Oct. 7. In a new attack Saturday, an assailant knocked on the door of a Jewish woman in the French city of Lyon and, when she opened, said “Hello” before stabbing her twice in the stomach, according to the woman’s lawyer, Stéphane Drai, who spoke to broadcaster BFM. He said police also found a swastika on the woman’s door. The woman was being treated in a hospital and her life was not in danger, the lawyer said.
In Berlin, around 1,000 police officers were deployed to ensure order after previous pro-Palestinian protests turned violent. German news agency dpa reported that about 6,000 protesters marched through the center of the German capital. Police banned any kind of public or written statements that are antisemitic, anti-Israeli or glorify violence or terror. Several thousand protesters also marched through the west German city of Duesseldorf.
At the London rally, with hundreds of protesters, the Metropolitan Police said its officers made 11 arrests, including one on a terrorism charge for displaying a placard that could incite hatred. The police force had forewarned that it would also monitor social media and use facial recognition to spot criminal behavior.
On Friday, two women who attended a pro-Palestinian march three weeks ago were charged under the U.K.’s Terrorism Act for displaying images on their clothing of paragliders. In its Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel, Hamas employed paragliders to get some fighters across the border between Gaza and southern Israel. Prosecutors said the images aroused suspicion they were supporters of Hamas, which U.K. authorities regard as a terrorist group.
In Romania’s capital, hundreds gathered in central Bucharest, many waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Save the children from Gaza.”
At a rally by several thousand people in Milan, Matteo Salvini, a deputy prime minister, spoke out against antisemitism, calling it “a most cancers, a virulent plague, one thing disgusting,’’
In every other phase of Milan, a pro-Palestinian rally drew about 4,000 other people and there used to be additionally a march by a number of thousand in Rome. Yara Abushab, a 22-year-old scientific pupil from Gaza University, who has been in Italy since Oct. 1, used to be some of the contributors and described Oct. 7 as a watershed for her.
“They bombed my university, my hospital. I lost a lot of loved ones and right now the last time I heard something from my family was a week ago,” she mentioned. “The situation is indescribable.”
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Associated Press writers John Leicester in Le Pecq, France; Stephen McGrath in Bucharest, Romania; Brian Melley in London, Frances D’Emilio and Silvia Stellacci in Rome, and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this file.