London’s Metropolitan Police are planning to deploy 4,000 police officers to maintain order during the Nakba Day protest on Saturday – one of many that will be taking place worldwide to mark the so-called “Palestinian catastrophe” of 1948.
Although Nakba Day is officially on Friday, May 15, the annual London protest, organized by a coalition of groups including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War, and others, will take to the streets on Saturday.
On Wednesday, Deputy Assistant Commissioner James Harman said that Saturday “has the potential to be one of the busiest days for policing in London in recent years.”
He said that the 4,000 officers will take a “zero-tolerance approach,” supported by specialist resources, including live facial recognition, helicopters, drones, dog units, police horses, armored vehicles, and dedicated investigative teams.
He noted that the UK's terrorism threat level has been raised to severe. In recent weeks and months, he said, the UK has seen terrorist attacks and a sustained campaign of arson targeting Jewish Londoners against a backdrop of increasing hate crime, in particular, antisemitism.
“Taken together, these factors give us significant cause for concern heading into the weekend and require a policing plan that provides us with the most assertive grip on the movement of large groups, and the potential for disorder and other criminality that arises as a result,” he said.
While he said many come to protest with good intentions and no desire to commit offenses or spread hate, “many others do not.”
Notably, on the same day, the “Unite the Kingdom” protest organized by activist Tommy Robinson will also take place. Harman noted that some of these events have included anti-Muslim behavior, and that the police is preparing for that as well.
The Nakba Day protest will form up in Exhibition Road in Kensington before heading to Waterloo Place via Brompton Road and Piccadilly. A rally with speeches will take place at the end of the march. Speakers include British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah, MP Zara Sultana, and MP Diane Abbott.
PSC, which is organizing, said the protesters will be marching against Israel’s “racist system of oppression, including ethnic cleansing, settler-colonialism, apartheid, and genocide” and in support of “the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the refugees’ right to return home.”
“We march against the far right in Britain who glorify Israel’s racism and brutality,” the group said in a statement.
Coaches will depart from most major UK cities to bring protesters to the event.
The Palestine Coalition [Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Palestinian Forum of Britain, Stop the War Coalition, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Muslim Association of Britain, and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament] filed a complaint against Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley last Wednesday over two media interviews, in which he accused the groups of antisemitism.
The complaint, sent to the London Mayor’s Office, says Rowley “acted in a racially discriminatory way in inferring that protests against fundamental violations of international law by Israel and by Britain are antisemitic.”
Nakba Day protests set to take place in US, France
London is just one of many cities to play host to Nakba Day protests. In the US, Within Our Lifetime has called for supporters to “flood the streets of New York” on Friday to mark 78 years of “genocide” and “resistance.”
“Everything happening in Gaza today is not new. It has been happening since 1948, now on a larger scale for the world to see. Proof was never the problem, because we know this is how colonization operates. This is what they do to indigenous people,” WOL leader Nerdeen Kiswani said on X/Twitter. “Palestine is not an anomaly; it is a litmus test, a moral compass, and what is allowed to happen in Gaza will not stop there.”
In Dearborn, dozens of far-left and pro-Palestinian organizations are collaborating for a Friday protest to commemorate “the mass displacement and ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Palestinians in 1948.”
“We demand an end to the ongoing Nakba! We will continue the struggle until the full liberation of our people and return,” Palestinian Youth Michigan said in a Wednesday Instagram post.
A protest is set to be held in Brussels in front of the Israeli embassy in Belgium, according to social media posts by Brussels Against Genocide and Bruzelles Pantheres. The Argentine Committee of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is holding marches through a main Buenos Aires street, warning about a continued Nakba. South African activist groups are set to dedicate their weekly Friday picket to Nakba Day.
Not all groups will be holding their protests on Friday. In Montreal, the local Palestinian Youth Movement chapter has planned its protest on Saturday, saying on Instagram on Tuesday that they would “reaffirm that we will continue to fight, until liberation and return.”
In France, Urgence Palestine is set to hold a protest in Paris on Saturday, declaring that the cause was a “compass of freedom and struggle.”
Some organizations are set to hold multiple events to commemorate Nakba Day. According to Palestine Action Group Sydney, Australian groups are holding events across the continent, from Friday in Canberra and Sydney to Sunday in Perth, Brisbane, and Adelaide. Palestinian Youth Movement Boston is holding a Nakba week, with lectures planned on Wednesday and Sunday, and a protest in front of the Israeli consulate on Friday.
Some anti-Zionist Jewish groups have also taken up the banner of Nakba Day. International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network UK has called for Friday protests at the Israeli Embassy.
“All out for Nakba day!” IJAN UK said on Instagram on Thursday. “Solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for liberation.”