Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Rome, Barcelona and Madrid on Saturday against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in a show of growing international anger over the two-year-old war.
The protests in almost every major Spanish city had been planned for weeks, while the demonstration in Rome followed widespread anger after Israel intercepted a humanitarian aid flotilla that had set sail from Barcelona in a bid to break the blockade of the Palestinian territory.
The protests across southern Europe come as Hamas said that it has accepted some elements of a plan laid out by US President Donald Trump to end the war, which has left Gaza’s largest city in famine and stirred accusations of genocide against Israel.
Photo: AP
Rome’s police said that 250,000 people turned out, while organizers said that 1 million attended, for a second straight day of Italian demonstrations. Italy already saw more than 2 million people rally on Friday in a one-day general strike to support the Palestinians in Gaza.
In Spain, officials said that 100,000 people marched in Madrid and another 70,000 filled downtown Barcelona. Organizers of the Madrid march raised attendance to 400,000, while organizers in Barcelona said that 300,000 took part.
Spaniards were also called by activists to march in Valencia, Sevilla, Malaga and other cities.
Smaller rallies took place in Paris, Lisbon, Athens and Skopje, and in London and Manchester, England.
The protest in Rome that followed a route by the Colosseum was organized by three Palestinian organizations along with local unions and students.
At Piazza San Giovanni, protesters chanted and applauded the name of Francesca Albanese, an Italian who is the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories and a vocal critic of Israel.
Although the organizers had requested that only Palestinian flags be carried, there were some banners praising the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas. One read: “October 7, Day of Palestinian Resistance,” a reference to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel that sparked the war, while another large flag read “Death, death to the IDF,” a reference to the Israel Defense Forces. A group also chanted the same slogan, state broadcaster RAI reported.
Meanwhile, about 137 activists detained by Israel for taking part in a flotilla seeking to deliver aid to Gaza on Saturday arrived in Turkey after being deported, with two alleging that Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was mistreated.
Israel did not immediately comment on the allegations, but its foreign ministry earlier described reports that detainees had been mistreated as “complete lies.”
The activists who landed at Istanbul Airport included 36 Turkish nationals, as well as citizens from the US, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Morocco, Italy, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Mauritania, Switzerland, Tunisia and Jordan, Turkish foreign ministry sources said.
Two of them, Hazwani Helmi, a Malaysian citizen, and the US’ Windfield Beaver said that they had witnessed Thunberg being mistreated, saying she was shoved and forced to wear an Israeli flag.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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