Protesters around the world Thursday railed at Israel’s interception of a flotilla carrying aid for Gaza’s besieged Palestinians, urging greater sanctions in response.
From Europe to Australia and South America, demonstrators took to the streets to condemn the treatment of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which set sail from Barcelona last month to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza, where the United Nations reports famine conditions after nearly two years of war.
Forty-one ships with more than 400 people aboard, including politicians and climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, were halted by the Israeli navy from Wednesday and prevented from reaching the coastal territory, an Israeli official said.
Around 15,000 people marched through Barcelona in protest at Israel’s actions, according to the municipal police force in Spain’s second city, chanting slogans including “Gaza, you are not alone”, “Boycott Israel” and “Freedom for Palestine”.
Riot police beat back a portion of the protesters who attempted to climb over barriers with truncheons, forcing them to retreat, images broadcast on Spanish public television showed.
A boat carrying former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau was among those prevented from proceeding. Colau and her fellow activists, including Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla Mandela, face deportation by Israel.
Several hundred protesters also marched outside the Irish parliament in Dublin, where support for the Palestinian cause has often been compared to Ireland’s centuries-long struggle against British colonial rule.
Miriam McNally, who said her daughter had set sail with the flotilla, was at the Dublin demonstration.
“I am worried sick for my daughter, but I am so proud of her and of what she’s doing,” McNally told AFP.
“She is standing up for humanity in the face of grave danger.”
Around a thousand people marched in Paris’s Place de la Republique, an AFP journalist saw, while in the port city of Marseille, in southern France, around a hundred pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested in the afternoon after attempting to block access to offices of weapons maker Eurolinks, accused of selling military components to Israel.
Protests were also held in Berlin, The Hague, Tunis, Brasilia and Buenos Aires, according to AFP correspondents.
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