Tens of thousands of people have rallied across Australia at pro-Palestine demonstrations, with organisers vowing to continue protesting after Donald Trump brokered a ceasefire deal in Gaza that initially appeared to be holding.
In Sydney the Palestine Action Group said 30,000 people had marched from Hyde Park to Belmore Park in the central business district after a planned rally to the Opera House was prohibited by the New South Wales court of appeal last week.
NSW police estimated 8,000 people attended the Sydney protest, with a spokesperson saying there had been “no significant incidents”.
Rallies were also held in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth on Sunday to mark two years of killing in Gaza after Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023 killed about 1,200 people in Israel.
Separately, thousands were expected to attend a Jewish community commemoration on Sunday night in Sydney to mark the second anniversary of 7 October. Geoffrey Majzner, the brother of Galit Carbone, an Australian citizen who was killed during the attacks, was expected to speak.
The Palestine Action Group organiser Josh Lees told Guardian Australia at Sunday’s rally: “In terms of the movement, we’ll absolutely continue to protest for a free Palestine … for self-determination in Gaza, for aid to be allowed in and for Palestinians to be able to rebuild Gaza.”
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But a fellow organiser, Amal Naser, said that next week the organisation would be among groups attending a Unite Against Racism rally in Belmore Park in response to anti-immigration rallies and the presence of neo-Nazis in Australia.
On Sunday, many protesters expressed hope that the ceasefire would lead to lasting peace. Others were sceptical of Trump’s involvement and urged pro-Palestine supporters to keep pressuring the Australian government to sanction Israel and end the trade in military goods.
Shamikh Badra, a Palestinian Australian living in Sydney, said he hoped the agreement would allow him to bring his elderly mother, who is still in Gaza without access to medical care, to Australia, and to find and bury his brother, sister-in-law and their four children, who have been missing since 2023.
“We support the efforts to end the genocide but still, I’m worried … the Trump plan [was] imposed on Palestinians,” he said. “They didn’t consult Palestinians at the beginning.”
The Sydney rally heard from speakers, including four Australians released from Israeli detention after the interception of the Sumud flotilla this month.
Surya McEwen, his arm in a sling after it was allegedly dislocated in an Israeli prison, told Guardian Australia that not enough was known about the ceasefire deal. International aid organisations, including Unrwa and Unicef, were preparing to enter Gaza.
McEwen said flotilla activists would continue to try to deliver aid by sea “as long as there is a situation where there’s a brutal and illegal blockade on Gaza”.
Abubakir Rafiq, who returned to Sydney on Friday, gave an emotional speech describing his detention with 83 other men in Israel’s Ketziot prison.
“I’ve been freed,” he said. “But what about those two Palestinians that I saw at the same time that I was brought to prison … what about the 10,000 Palestinian hostages that are being held in prison?”
The NSW Greens MP Jenny Leong told the crowd: “We cannot let a world where Trump determines the future of the Palestinian people to be the kind of world that we live in.”
Naser, who submitted the original application to march on the Opera House, maintained that the protesters could have safely headed to the famous harbourside venue. The NSW police assistant commissioner Peter McKenna told the court of appeal last week the plan had “disaster written all over it”.
Naser said on Sunday: “Every single time the police attempt to oppose our rallies or take us to the supreme court, it wakes up a lot of people … to the need to mobilise and stand up against it.”
– Additional reporting by Australian Associated Press
