Hundreds of thousands of anti-Israel activists marched in London on Saturday, despite Hamas and Israel’s agreement to a ceasefire as part of the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan. They decried the terms of the plan and called for the establishment of a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Marchers associated with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War, and a coalition of other groups marched with Palestinian flags and keffiyehs along a route specified by the Metropolitan Police, culminating in a series of speeches at Whitehall. The Met had imposed the conditions on the demonstration on Friday, ostensibly seeking to prevent “serious disruption to the local community.”
At least 14 arrests were made, half of which were for violations of the 1986 Public Order Act. The Met said on X/Twitter that other arrests were made for supporting a proscribed terror group, as well as when Youth Demand activists blocked Tower Bridge. Still others were arrested when counter-protesters breached conditions, reportedly leading to clashes and arrests.
Signs called for an end to the alleged starvation and genocide in Gaza, according to Stop the War and Stop the Hate UK social media, while others, such as the banner of the Hackney Socialist Workers’ Party declared, “Victory to the resistance.”
“Death to the IDF,” some activists chanted, according to Stop the Hate, while others called for “Intifada.”
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Organizer Palestine Solidarity Campaign posted on social media that it would continue its efforts until “the Palestinian people are free from the river to the sea.”
PSC director Ben Jamal rejected the Trump peace plan in a video statement, arguing that its terms would not result in an enduring peace because they did not address the root causes of violence in the region.
Jamal called for an end to military occupation, the dismantling of a supposed system of apartheid that exists “all over Palestine,” a right of return for Palestinians into Israel, and a path for self-determination for the Palestinian people. The PSC leader did not believe that Israel would hold to the ceasefire.
Your Party leaders MP Jeremy Corbyn and MP Zarah Sultana focused on the issue of governance in speeches to the crowd of activists, dismissing the planned international governance regime as a denial of Palestinian self-determination and the Gaza Strip's proposed authority, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, as the “colonial viceroy of Gaza.”
Corbyn said that there would soon be a reckoning for British leaders who provided “political cover” for Israel and praised protesters around the world for diplomatically isolating Israel and the US. Sultana called for further official isolation, demanding the government “sever all diplomatic relations with the genocidal apartheid state of Israel, expel the ambassador, shut down the embassy.”
Labour MP Apsana Begum also attacked the government and media during her speech, marking “Two years of such terrible human suffering,” asserting that they did not properly hold Israel responsible for bombings and starvation in the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Kier Starmer’s September 21 recognition of a Palestinian state was empty without strong action against Israel, according to the member of parliament.
“The best way to have a lasting and permanent ceasefire is to stop arming Israel,” said Begum, explaining that the movement would not stop marching despite a ceasefire until “there is justice for every single war crime, until every single war criminal is held to account, and until there is an end to the siege of Gaza and an end to the illegal occupation, until there is an independent and free Palestine.”
Massive Attack singer Robert Del Naja said in a video published by PSC that the occasion marked “two years of one of, probably the worst, crimes of the 21st century,” and criticized the UK government for failing to stop the “wholesale annihilation” of the Palestinian people.
A coalition of several organizations calling itself the One Palestine Bloc rallied during the protest to promote the idea of a non-United Nations international military force to defeat the IDF and “dismantle” the state of Israel.