On Saturday October 11 the 32nd march for Gaza took place on the day after a Gaza ceasefire was announced. An estimated 500,000 people filled the whole three-mile length of the route from Embankment to Downing Street. As the rally started in Whitehall, the back of the march was still on the Victoria Embankment. ‘We have gone full loop,’ said one of the organisers.
Brian Eno opened the rally by reading the moving poem, Oh Rascal Children of Gaza. He gave a moving speech, saying that since the ceasefire Palestinians had dug up dozens of bodies from the rubble of their homes while a few miles away Israelis were enjoying pina coladas on the beach.
The huge crowd assembled in defiance of appeals from the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood not to continue demonstrating.
Zarah Sultana, the former Labour MP expressed her outrage that in 2014 Mahmood had lain down on the floor of her local Sainsburys to protest at goods being sold from illegal Israeli settlements. ‘That was before she swapped solidarity for military car’. Now, as home secretary, she was calling Palestine Action a terrorist group.
Zarah Sultana said it was possible to be sympathetic to the victims of the synagogue attack and at the same time to be against the genocide in Gaza. ‘Every life is precious’. Like some other speakers, she questioned whether the ceasefire would lead to peace. ‘Peace is more than stopping bombing.’
Fran Heathcote, General Secretary of the Commercial Services Union revealed that 320,000 children in Gaza were at risk of malnutrition. ‘We have made a difference with our protest. We must continue to protest for peace to last and for the dismantling of the settlements.’ Do not stop protesting, speaking out and lobbying MPs, she urged. ‘Keir Starmer called our protest un-British. If we are un-British, so were the suffragettes.’
Ismail Patel, a British optician and founder of Friends of Al Aqsa, told the story of a child called Shaban who was forced to move with his parents and four siblings to a so-called safe zone. The safe zone was bombed, and the family had to move another five times in search of shelter. But nowhere was safe. Shaban was injured in an air strike and taken to the Al Aqsa hospital. There was no room inside the hospital, and he was put in a tent connected to an IV drip in the hospital grounds. The Israelis bombed the hospital courtyard. Shaban, in his tent still connected to his IV drip, was engulfed in fire with his mother beside him. Both died.
The Irish actor Denise Gough talked of her recent visit to the West Bank where she witnessed occupation and apartheid. She spent time with a farmer and his family whose land has been stolen by settlers. The settlers strip themselves naked and point guns at the children to taunt them. ‘The considered way Israeli metes out its cruelty is breath-taking.’
CND vice president Roger McKenzie exclaimed “They told us not to turn up for this demo as it’s not needed and half a million of you turn up and refuse to be silent. If we stop marching more people will be killed in Gaza. Israel never sticks to a ceasefire agreement. It’s our job to build a movement even stronger than it already is. Gaza needs us now more than ever. Israel’s ambition is for a greater Israel. “
PSC’s Director, Ben Jamal, emphasised that the ceasefire agreement made no reference about Israel’s system of apartheid in Palestine. It says nothing about the root cause of violence or the right to self-determination for Palestine and that our protests would not end until the Palestinian people are finally free.
The other speakers included Jeremy Corbyn MP, Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack, Ahmed Alnaouq, the co-founder of We Are Not Numbers, MP for Leeds East Richard Burgon and a representative of families in Gaza.
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