Protest held outside University College London in solidarity with Gaza

A group of people staged a demonstration Saturday outside University College London (UCL) in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where more than 36,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since 7 October last year, Anadolu news agency reported.

The crowd gathered outside UCL’s main building in Bloomsbury, just a few days after roughly a dozen tents were pitched in support of people in Gaza, joining several other campuses across the Western world.

Carrying Palestinian flags, the group chanted slogans, including “terrorist Israel,” referring to the relentless Israeli attacks that have left vast swathes of Gaza in ruins and pushed 85 per cent of the enclave’s population into internal displacement, even as they have faced a crippling blockade on food, clean water, and medicine, according to the UN.

Protesters called for divestment from firms complicit in the “ongoing genocide” in Gaza, and an end to arms shipments to Israel.

Separately, a smaller group held a counter-protest nearby, with police deployed in the area.

At least three protesters have been arrested by police during the protest.

The global wave of pro-Palestinian student demonstrations began on 17 April at Columbia University to protest Israel’s offensive in Gaza, spreading to other Western countries, including the UK.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on Gaza since the 7 October Hamas incursion, which killed around 1,200 people.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

Tel Aviv, in comparison, has killed more than 34,600 Palestinians and wounded 77,700 others amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities in the Palestinian Territory.

More than seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85 per cent of the enclave’s population into internal displacement besides a crippling blockade on food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which, in January, issued an interim ruling that ordered it to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

READ: University students, activists in Ireland hold demonstrations in support of Palestine