OVER 250,000 workers, students and youth marched for Palestine from Hyde Park towards the Israeli embassy in Kensington west London on Saturday afternoon.
There were constant chants of: ‘Stop bombing babies, stop bombing hospitals! From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! Free, Free, free Palestine! Ceasefire now!’
Placards included: ‘There is more spilt blood in Gaza than drinkable water! We are being killed and no-one is doing anything about it!’
At the rally they announced that Julian Assange’s case is coming up on Tuesday and Wednesday at 9am at the High Court, where he is facing extradition to America.
They said: ‘Everyone should go and demand Assange’s release. All he did was expose what really happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.’
A joint statement released by the organisers of Saturday’s march – the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, CND, Stop the War, and Friends of Al-Aqsa – condemned the Israeli regime’s genocidal war on Gaza.
It said: ‘Over 1.7 million Gazans have been forcibly displaced from their homes, more than 28,000 Palestinians have been killed and another 100,000 injured, in what the ICJ has accepted as a plausible case of genocide.
‘Despite the ICJ calling on Israel to stop genocidal acts, the Israeli government has made clear it intends to proceed with a full-scale military assault on Rafah.’
The march in London was part of a second Global Day of Action for Gaza.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told the rally that he will be voting in support of a motion in Parliament demanding an immediate ceasefire this week, to be tabled by the SNP.
Corbyn said: ‘We’ve got to carry on. This is the 14th national demonstration and there are going to be as many more as it takes until there is a ceasefire, until there is justice for the Palestinian people.
‘We’re witnessing something globally horrific in real time on our televisions.’
Chaiman of the PSC Ben Jamal said: ‘The moral imperative is clear. An immediate ceasefire is a simple, absolute necessity.’
Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, said: ‘Hang on to your anger, hang on to your enragement, hang on to your horror and use it, use it in the pursuit of justice.’
