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Thousands March to US Embassy in London With Message for Trump: 'Hands Off Gaza'
"Think of it as a big real estate site, and the United States is going to own it and we'll slowly—very slowly, we're in no rush—develop it," Trump told reporters last weekend.
Marchers carried signs Sunday expressing contempt for the president's proposal, which Amnesty International denounced as "inflammatory, outrageous, and shameful."
Protesters march to the U.S. Embassy in London on February 15, 2025. (Photo: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Stephen Kapos, an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, toldAFP on Saturday that Trump's proposal is "completely immoral and illegal, and also impractical and absurd."
"It's not going to happen," Kapos added, "but it does a lot of damage simply stating that as an endgame."
The mass demonstration in London, organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other organizations, followed news that Hamas freed three additional Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for the release of more than 360 Palestinians who were held in Israeli prisons.
The exchange was part of a tenuous cease-fire deal reached in January after 15 months of incessant U.S.-backed Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.
The assault's impact on Palestinians in Gaza was, and continues to be, catastrophic. According to an article published in The Lancet earlier this month, Israel's war on the Gaza Strip "generated a life expectancy loss of more than 30 years during the first 12 months of the war, nearly halving prewar levels."
"Actual losses are likely to be higher," the researchers noted, stressing that their estimate was conservative and "did not account for the indirect effect of the war."
Over 125,000 March in London Against Israel's Gaza Genocide
"It's vital we continue to take to the streets in huge numbers to demand an end to British complicity in Israel'a genocide and apartheid, including through an end to all arms trade with Israel," said the Palestine Solidarity campaign ahead of the march.
Stop the War coalition rebuked BBC's reporting for downplaying the size of the march, saying: "For the record, it was at least 125,000!" Various news outlets put the size of the march in the tens of thousands.
In his remarks to the demonstrators, actor and human rights activist Khalid Abdalla heralded those who attended.
"All of you here are beacons of hope in this darkness," said Abdalla. "Here you stand embodied, with the fullness of your voice, in a world that demands we are always in motion, numb to the reality that enters our lives through our phones, and the images that come to us day after day of this genocide in Gaza."
Marchers carried banners and chanted in unison as they made their way through central London, passing by counter-protesters near Piccadilly Circus and then making stops at 10 Downing Street, home of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, before concluding their demonstration in Parliament Square.
"The demonstrators voiced an uncompromising call to the UK government to end its support for Israel’s brutal occupation and its violations of international law," reported the Middle East Monitor. "Protestors demanded that the U.K. cut all diplomatic, military, and economic ties with Israel and impose an arms embargo. The march was a call for the U.K. to uphold its moral and legal obligations, including complying with the ICC arrest warrants and ensuring that Israeli war criminals face justice."
LONDON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 30: The march approaches Piccadilly from Hyde Park during a national demonstration for Palestine in Central London on November 30 on November 30, 2024 in London, England. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has once again convened a national demonstration for Palestine, asking the UK government to stop arming Israel. (Photo by Guy Smallman/Getty Image)
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke at the rally and assailed Starmer's current government for complicity in the Israel military campaign that claimed the lives of over 45,000 Palestinians, mostly civilian men, women, and children.
"I say to our government: if you knowingly supply weapons to a government led by someone wanted for war crimes, the long arm of international law will extend to you too," Corbyn declared.
In a plea to the world from Gaza on Saturday, poet and writer Nour Elassy said she and her family are currently starving as she expressed disbelief over the international community's failure to put a stop to Israeli atrocities.
"It is difficult for me to explain and capture the feeling of hunger for someone who does not understand the depths of its pain, and it is even more challenging to explain this experience while being under constant bombardment and shelling from Israel for more than 400 days now," Elassy wrote in a column for Al-Jazeera.
With her nieces and nephews, all under age six, also crying out in hunger, Elassy says this makes everything more difficult. "Hunger has affected everyone I see," she reports. "People are visibly thinner, they walk around with an empty look in their eyes, dark circles underneath. The streets are filled with children and elderly people begging for food. I see misery and hunger everywhere I turn."
"While Israel may hope that we starve in silence, we will not," she concluded. "The world can and must stop the starvation of Gaza."
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