In an extraordinary show of solidarity with the Palestinian people, over half a million demonstrators gathered in central London today to demand an end to the ongoing genocide against Palestinians, a campaign of ethnic cleansing that began with the Nakba in 1948 and continues today with horrifying intensity in Gaza.
The national demonstration—organised by a coalition of prominent groups including the Palestinian Forum in Britain (PFB), Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA), Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND),and Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), assembled at 12.00 noon at Embankment Tube and marched through central London with calls for justice, liberation, and an immediate end to the UK’s complicity in Israel’s crimes.
This year’s demonstration marked 77 years since the beginning of the Nakba, not simply as a historical event but as the start of a systematic and ongoing campaign of dispossession, apartheid, and violence aimed at erasing the Palestinian people. Since 1948, Israel has expelled over 750,000 Palestinians, destroyed more than 500 villages and towns, and imposed a regime of apartheid, military occupation, and siege that continues to this day.
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Nowhere is this genocidal project more visible than in Gaza, where over the past 18 months, Israeli forces have carried out an unprecedented campaign of destruction. According to international organisations and UN agencies, more than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed, the majority women and children. The entire civilian infrastructure has been decimated, hospitals, schools, refugee camps, water supplies, all deliberately targeted. More than 1.9 million people have been displaced, trapped under siege and facing Israeli-made famine, disease, and total humanitarian collapse. Legal scholars and human rights experts have described the assault as genocide.
Speakers at the demonstration included representatives of all co-organising groups, trade unionists, students, and community leaders, including historian William Dalrymple, Activist Leanne Mohamad, Freedom Flotilla activist Col. Ann Wright, and director of Al-Haq human rights organisation Shawan Jabarin.
Fares Amer, spokesperson for the Palestinian Forum in Britain (PFB), also delivered a rousing speech, stating: “Despite the attempts to erase the Palestinian people from existence, and to the dismay of the Zionists and their Western backers, we are still here. The aim of Israel’s genocide in Gaza is to finish off the job they started 77 years ago. But they will fail.”
The protest was peaceful but uncompromising, with chants of “Free Palestine,” “Ceasefire Now,” and “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” echoing through the streets of London.
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