Global protests erupted Thursday against Israel’s interception of the Gaza-bound flotilla, which was carrying humanitarian aid for Palestinians living under siege. Demonstrators across Europe, Australia, and South America called for stronger sanctions in response. The Global Sumud Flotilla, which set sail from Barcelona last month to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza where the United Nations reports famine-like conditions after nearly two years of conflict was stopped by the Israeli navy on Wednesday. The flotilla included 41 ships carrying more than 400 people, including politicians and climate activist Greta Thunberg. In Barcelona, around 15,000 protesters marched, chanting slogans such as “Gaza, you are not alone,” “Boycott Israel,” and “Freedom for Palestine.” Spanish public television showed riot police using truncheons to push back demonstrators who attempted to climb barriers. A vessel carrying former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau was among those halted, with Colau and fellow activists, including Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla Mandela, facing deportation by Israel. In Dublin, several hundred people demonstrated outside the Irish parliament, expressing solidarity with Palestinians a cause often compared to Ireland’s own historical struggle against British rule. Miriam McNally, whose daughter sailed with the flotilla, attended the protest, telling AFP she was “worried sick” but proud of her daughter for “standing up for humanity in the face of grave danger.” In France, about 1,000 protesters gathered at Paris’s Place de la Republique, while in Marseille, around a hundred pro-Palestinian activists were arrested after attempting to block the offices of weapons manufacturer Eurolinks, accused of supplying military components to Israel. Protests were also held in Berlin, The Hague, Tunis, Brasilia and Buenos Aires, according to AFP correspondents. Intolerable In Italy, where the country’s main unions have called a general strike for Friday in solidarity with the flotilla, thousands took to the streets to urge Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to defend the activists. Besides Rome, where police said 10,000 people joined a march, other protests took place in cities including Milan, Torino, Florence and Bologna. A day after a similar demonstration Wednesday evening, protesters in the capital gathered at the Colosseum and marched, slamming the far-right prime minister’s support of Israel. “We are prepared to block everything. The genocidal machine must stop immediately,” demonstrators chanted. In Turkey, whose government is among the fiercest critics of Israel’s offensive, a long column of demonstrators marched to the Israeli embassy in Istanbul, with banners including “Total embargo on the occupation”. “We demand the release of all members of the Sumud fleet and all prisoners, and as university students, we demand that all academic and economic ties with the genocidal Israeli state be terminated at our universities,” 21-year-old student Elif Bozkurt told AFPTV. Around 3,000 demonstrators also took to the front of the European Parliament building in Brussels, with one banner urging the EU to “break the siege” as smoke bombs and crackers were set off in the crowd. “The message is that each boat must be protected,” a protester named Isis told AFPTV at the demonstration, urging the European Union’s leadership to halt the “astronomical sums of money sent to Israel” through the bloc’s agreements with the Middle Eastern country. Apartheid state A similar-sized crowd rallied in Geneva, according to an AFP journalist at the scene and Swiss broadcasters, with the mostly young protesters lighting a bonfire near the central station. The protesters then headed to the Swiss city’s Mont Blanc bridge, at the end of Lake Geneva, to be met by a line of police in riot gear, who pushed the demonstrators back after brief clashes. In the Greek capital Athens, a throng of protesters set off fireworks and flares. “The attack against the flotilla Sumud, it was a barbaric escalation from the Israeli apartheid state. They don’t want to even open a passage for humanitarian help to Gaza,” Petros Konstantinou, coordinator of Greece’s World Against Racism and Fascism (KEERFA) group, told AFPTV. Dozens also rallied in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, in front of the embassy of the United States, Israel’s key ally. “We are very upset… Upset, angry, disgusted because what they are doing is for humanity,” said Ili Farhan, 43. “They are just bringing in aid and baby food… This arrest is unjust.”
Global protests erupt against Israeli interception of Gaza-bound flotilla
