‘FROM the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! – From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever!’ ‘Say it now and say it loud, Gaza you make us proud!’ ‘Netanyahu, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!’, students chanted as they marched through central London on Tuesday, the 2nd anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation which broke the siege of Gaza on 7th October 2023.
More than 10,000 students marched through central London, while thousands more marched and rallied at universities all over the country in support of Gaza and against the Israeli genocide.
Labour Prime Minister Starmer reinforced his open support for the two years of Israeli genocide on Tuesday morning with an article in the Times Newspaper denouncing students who marched for Palestine on that day, describing them as ‘un-British’.
Student marchers assembled outside King’s College in Strand where they began with chants of ‘1234, Occupation no more! 5678, Israel is a terror state!’
The president of the London School of Economics (LSE) Campaign for Palestine addressed the crowd, saying: ‘This didn’t start on October 7th 2023. There have been 77 years of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
‘When a mother is killed, when a baby is killed, when babies can’t feed from their mothers, how can we be complicit?
‘When Gaza burns to the ground, our hearts should burn. There have been 65,000 people exterminated in Gaza in the last two years alone.’
Then they marched to LSE, where there were calls for LSE to stop working with companies that support Israel and where they were joined by students from LSE, SOAS, Goldsmiths and other universities.
They were again addressed by student representatives, including expelled student Haya Adam, who told the crowd: ‘We will win in the end. It’s the ones who try to demonise us are the ones who have no humanity.
‘We are witnessing this genocide in real time. No-one can pretend they did not know what is happening.’
They also chanted: ‘There is only one state, Palestine 48!’
Students gradually gathered at the centre of the Kings College Campus near the green, before a public rally in support of Palestine at lunchtime.
Student in film studies, Ciaran, told News Line: ‘I think there should be a free Palestine. What the Israeli government is doing is really horrible. They are committing a genocide. Our government is complicit and actively funding the Israeli military.
Ida, a history student said: ‘It’s horrendous. This is the first genocide that has been so widely reported and so ignored.
‘Israel is unapologetic. It’s unashamedly doing these things in front of the whole world and is not being sanctioned. When the holocaust happened they could hide it.
‘A lot of Jewish people don’t want this. All human beings with compassionate hearts stand with Palestine. Yet they arrest old people protesting against the genocide.
‘Palestine is a victim of British imperialism. It still provides arms for Israel. You can’t claim lands that you have settled. Imperialism should not control our state and our minds.
‘This genocide should have been ended when it started. Now it is ethnic cleansing. A lot of us study history. People don’t know about the Boer War.’
Jade, studying computer science, said: ‘All these countries now saying they support the state of Palestine – it’s just performative. Israel is still killing hundreds of people including children everyday and these states are not doing anything about it. How far will Israel go before these countries react?
‘These states waited until Hitler attacked Poland before they reacted. We have to raise the issue of Palestine. All they care about is money. We need to hit them where it hurts. It’s good that the Italians took national strike action and we must go on protesting.
‘This new legislation to prevent protest and bring in ID cards shows where they are going. It’s ironic that the book “1984” was written by a British person. I don’t think there’s democracy any more. In France, they voted Macron to avoid Le Pen, but he keeps choosing interior ministers that we hate.’
Daniella, a Politics student said: ‘I think it’s a tragedy. The genocide should stop. The position of this government is terrible. They tried to recognise a Palestinian state, but it is clearly supporting Israel. They should show full support for Palestine.
‘It’s getting very dangerous in this country for freedom of speech. Of course people should have the right to demonstrate for Palestine.’
Speaking to protesters gathered near SOAS University in Bloomsbury, expelled student Haya Adam said: ‘Keir Starmer has urged students not to protest today but we are here today.
‘We have successfully marched all the way from KCL to SOAS.
‘We will not be intimidated by the state or afraid by their oppression.’
Adam, who previously studied international relations and law at SOAS, added that Starmer and the Labour Government are funding destruction in Gaza.
‘It’s our responsibility to march today because it’s been over two years, two years and 77 years of an ongoing Nakba, of continuous forced starvation, massacres against our Palestinian brothers and sisters.’
Students marched between university campuses in London to criticise their ‘complicity through investments’ and academic partnerships linked to Israel, from a number of the capital’s universities.
Protest group UCL (University College London) Action For Palestine, which took part in the London march, posted on social media that it would not be ‘silenced or intimidated’ and stood in solidarity with the thousands of Palestinians killed before and prior to October 2023.
At the University of Glasgow, the student group declared: ‘Whilst we commemorate two years of genocide we celebrate the glorious Al-Aqsa Flood.’
Glasgow students sat in the campus cloisters chanting ‘stop the bombing’.
In Edinburgh, students and staff gathered with homemade placards chanting: ‘From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.’
Asked about Starmer claiming it was ‘un-British’ to protest for Gaza on 7th October, Anton Parocki said: ‘It’s just disgraceful. What I think is insensitive, is that there has been two years of genocide. Conflating the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu with Judaism is actually antisemitic.
‘Jewish people are not pro-genocide. We need to be loud about this, because there is a genocide right now, Palestinians are starving right now.’
At University of Edinburgh, hundreds of students and staff marched through its campus carrying flags and holding placards.