Tens of thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators have marched through London to mark the anniversary of Nakba.
The demonstration, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, began at Embankment before heading down to Big Ben, across the river to Waterloo, then over the bridge and down to the doors outside Downing Street.
The PSC said the march was intended to “mark the 77th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba and demand our government take action to end the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land”.
The Nakba, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic, is the name Palestinians give to the violent displacement of an estimated 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and villages during the fighting surrounding the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948, which resulted in the permanent displacement of more than half the Palestinian population, according to the UN.
The anniversary coincided with reports that the Donald Trump administration was in talks with Libya about the northern African country taking up to a million Palestinians from Gaza in exchange for billions of dollars. Previous talk from Mr Trump about relocating the Palestinians from the enclave drew the ire of the international community, who referred back to the Nakba.
A spokesperson for the PSC said they expected around 100,000 people to attend the London march, making it larger than previous demonstrations in recent months.
The Metropolitan Police, which set out Public Order Act conditions in place for the protest, highlighting areas on a London map where attendees must remain, suggested about 20,000 demonstrators showed up.
Protesters were bused in from around the country, as far as Wales and northern England.
A counter-demonstration organised by “Stop The Hate” gathered on the Strand at the north end of Waterloo Bridge. The group was told to remain in a specific area of the Strand by the Met. Dozens of Israeli flags were seen being waved by counter-protesters on the sidelines of the march.
The pro-Palestine demonstrations hit their peak under the previous Conservative government, in the immediate months after Hamas launched its cross-border attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, and Israel responded by conducting widespread attacks on Gaza. Around 300,000 protesters attended the Armistice Day protest in 2023, according to the Met, which remains the most widely attended demonstration since the outbreak of the war in the Middle East.
Hamas killed around 1,200 people during the 7 October attacks, and took more than 250 hostage in Gaza. Israel’s retaliatory air and ground offensives have killed more than 53,000 people, according to the local health ministry. Nearly the entire 2.3 million population has been displaced, many more than once, as the enclave has been razed to the ground by relentless Israeli airstrikes, which, they say, are intended to root out Hamas operatives.
Efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict have been frustrated by both Hamas and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently approved fresh plans to launch more deadly attacks in Gaza.
Humanitarian agencies and the international community have urged Israel to allow vital aid into the enclave.
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