‘Free Palestine, Boycott Israel’: Rallies Held across Europe in Support of Palestinians

In London, several thousand protesters carrying placards reading "Stop Bombing Gaza" and chanting "Free Palestine" converged on Marble Arch, near the British capital's Hyde Park, to march towards the Israeli embassy.   

Packed crowds stretched all along Kensington High Street where the embassy is located.

Organizers claimed as many as 150,000 people had gathered for the London march, one of several across Britain, though London police said they were unable to confirm any figure.

"The group is spread across a large area which makes it impossible to count them," a Metropolitan Police spokesman said.

"This time is different," Palestinian Ambassador Husam Zomlot told the demonstrators.

"This time we will not be denied any more. We are united. We have had enough of oppression."

Simon Makepace, a 61-year-old accountant told AFP he had joined the protests because "the whole world should be doing something about it, including this country".

He was critical of the United States, which he said was unfairly backing Israel, and urged Washington to "make peace and stop what's happening".

Azadeh Pyman, a 50-year-old scientist said she had been raised on the Palestinian cause by her parents and grandparents.

"I think it's the cause that will go from one generation to another generation, until Palestine is free," she said.

In Madrid, some 2,500 people, many of them young people wrapped in Palestinian flags, marched to the Puerta del Sol plaza in the city center.

"This is not a war, it's genocide," they chanted.

"They are massacring us," said Amira Sheikh-Ali, a 37-year-old of Palestinian origin.

"We're in a situation when the Nakba is continuing in the middle of the 21st century," she said, referring to the "catastrophe", a word used by Palestinians to describe Israel's creation in 1948 when hundreds of thousands fled or were driven out.

"We want to ask Spain and the European authorities not to collaborate with Israel, because with their silence, they are collaborating," said Ikhlass Abousousiane, a 25-year-old nurse of Moroccan origin.

The marches came amid the worst Israeli violence against Palestinians since a 2014 war in Gaza.

Thousands marched in Berlin and other German cities following a call by the Samidoun collective.

Three marches were authorized in Berlin's working-class Neukoelln southern district, home to large numbers of people with Turkish and Arabic roots.

The protesters shouted "Boycott Israel" and threw paving stones and bottles at the police, leading to several arrests.

Other protests were held in Frankfurt, Leipzig and Hamburg.

On Tuesday, Israeli flags were burnt in front of two synagogues in Bonn and Muenster.

Police officers used tear gas and water cannon in Paris to try and disperse a pro-Palestinian rally held there despite a ban by authorities.

Some threw stones or tried to set up roadblocks with construction barriers, but for the most part police pursued groups across the district while preventing a planned march toward the Place de la Bastille.

The march had been banned on Thursday over concerns of a repeat of fierce clashes that erupted at a similar Paris march during the last war in 2014.

"France is the only democratic country to ban these demonstrations," said a statement from lawyers for the Association of Palestinians in the Paris region.

Few incidents were reported outside Paris as the interior ministry estimated 22,000 people marched in 60 different protests and marches around France, including Montpellier, Toulouse and Bordeaux.

In Greece, police said around a thousand people marched on the US embassy in Athens. Riot police used water cannon and there were minor scuffles with protesters in front of the embassy, AFP correspondents reported.

In Rome, a few hundred people gathered near the Santa Maria Maggiore basilica, carrying large Palestinian flags and chanting slogans.

"No need to be Muslim to support the Palestinians," read one placard: "You just need to be a human being."