- By Louisa Pilbeam reporting from the march, & Andre Rhoden-Paul
- BBC News
Image supply, Getty Images
Thousands of persons are marching to the US Embassy within the capital
Tens of hundreds of individuals have marched in central London calling for a direct ceasefire in Gaza.
The demonstration, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), made its means from Hyde Park Corner to the US Embassy in Nine Elms.
It was the tenth pro-Palestinian march in central London since Israel began its marketing campaign in Gaza following the 7 October assaults on Israel by Hamas.
Singer Charlotte Church was seen on the entrance of the march because it set off.
The Welsh singer, who has been a vocal campaigner, mentioned she had joined to “present solidarity” with Palestinians “for all that they’re struggling by way of”.
During the course of the occasion, Metropolitan Police officers arrested 4 folks on suspicion of public order offences, together with for chanting offensive slogans or holding an offensive placard, whereas one man was arrested for assault.
An additional man was additionally arrested for assault “throughout an altercation between protesters and counter-protesters with the intention to forestall a breach of the peace” however he was later de-arrested, the Met added.
It mentioned there had been no “vital public order disturbance” at any protest on Saturday.
Charlotte Church sang on the protest
The march got here after the federal government’s counter-extremism commissioner this week mentioned London had develop into a “no-go zone for Jews” on the weekends throughout the demonstrations.
And earlier, Mark Gardner, who leads the Community Security Trust which supplies safety for the Jewish group, instructed BBC Radio 4’s Today programme some Jewish folks have been selecting to keep away from central London due to the demonstrations.
He mentioned: “Again and once more simply folks saying ‘I’m not going into city on the weekend due to these demonstrations… I do not need the chance that they realise I’m Jewish and begin shouting abuse at me’.”
But march organiser Ben Jamal referred to as the no-go zone feedback “disgraceful”.
“The actuality is, you will note these are folks from all walks of life from many backgrounds who right here marching for peace, and because the police themselves admit these marches are overwhelmingly peaceable,” he added.
Church, who was amongst an all-female line-up of audio system on the rally, to mark International Women’s Day, mentioned: “There’s been singing there’s been drumming, sure, there’s been emotion, however within the majority that emotion has been love, has been compassion as a result of that is why we’re all right here.”
Also on the march was former Labour chief Jeremy Corbyn, who now sits as an unbiased MP.
He instructed PA News Agency the demonstration was “monumental and we’re right here as a result of we’re appalled on the bombing that is nonetheless happening in Gaza”.
Israel’s army launched an air and floor marketing campaign within the Gaza Strip after Hamas’s lethal assaults on Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 folks have been killed and 253 others have been taken hostage.
More than 30,800 folks have been killed in Gaza since then, the territory’s Hamas-run well being ministry says.
The battle has created a rising humanitarian disaster within the territory and the UN has warned that famine in Gaza is “almost inevitable”.
At least 576,000 folks throughout the Gaza Strip – one quarter of the inhabitants – are going through catastrophic ranges of meals insecurity and one in six kids below the age of two within the north are affected by acute malnutrition, a senior UN support official warned final week.
