In the French capital Paris, 19,000 people took to the streets, according to police figures, while the CGT union put the number at 60,000 people. In addition to numerous Palestinian flags, signs reading “Free Palestine” could be seen. Some demonstrators called for a boycott of Israel and held signs reading “Israel is a terrorist state.”
In Washington on Saturday, thousands of people called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. At the largest demonstration in the US capital since the radical Islamic Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, some participants also criticized US President Joe Biden and shouted: “Biden, Biden, you can’t hide, you have approved genocide. “
Thousands of people also took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Germany on Saturday. The police in Berlin spoke of an estimated 9,000 participants that evening. No major incidents were initially reported. The protests were particularly directed against Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip.
According to the police, 17,000 people, significantly more than registered, took part in a pro-Palestinian demonstration in the North Rhine-Westphalia state capital of Düsseldorf. Even before the procession began, posters that contained criminal offenses were seized. According to police, up to 1,300 people demonstrated in Bremen on Saturday for what the organizers called “peaceful coexistence” between Palestinians and Israelis.
The radical Islamic group Hamas, which rules in the Gaza Strip, launched a large-scale attack on Israel on October 7th in which, according to Israeli figures, around 1,400 people were killed, mostly civilians. More than 240 people were kidnapped from Israel to the Gaza Strip by Hamas fighters. According to Hamas figures that cannot be independently verified, more than 9,400 people have been killed by Israel’s counterattacks in the Gaza Strip.
