Waving placards and Palestinian and Lebanese flags, demonstrators marched into the center of the British capital late in the morning. At the head of the procession in particular, the former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn (now independent) and the former Scottish Prime Minister Humza Yousaf.
“Stop the bombings”, “Free, free Palestine” and “Stop bombing hospitals” were among the most popular slogans chanted by the demonstrators who marched peacefully. “There needs to be a ceasefire, a ceasefire now. How many more innocent Palestinians or Lebanese have to die?” asked Sophia Thomson, 27, who was protesting with friends.
“The fact that there are so many of us shows that the government does not speak on behalf of the people,” she added. The Prime Minister “Starmer has blood on his hands”, “Starmer, Starmer you cannot hide we will charge you with genocide” were also among the slogans cited by the crowd.
A similar demonstration was underway on Saturday in Dublin, in the Irish capital. Numerous protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza have taken place over the past year in London.
The Israeli army launched a deadly offensive in Gaza, where at least 41,825 Palestinians, mainly civilians, were killed, according to data from the Hamas Ministry of Health. An investigation by the prestigious scientific journal The Lancet put the number of victims at at least 186,000 last July.
At the same time, the situation has seriously deteriorated in Lebanon. On Monday, the Israeli army launched a ground offensive in the south of the country.
