Pro-Palestine protesters in the UK have held demonstrations on the second anniversary of the 7 October attacks in Israel, despite pleas by Keir Starmer to cancel the “un-British” rallies.
The prime minister said the events showed “little respect for others” while Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary; Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick also spoke out on the issue.
However, within hours, a university protest began weaving its way through central London. A German student draped in an Israel flag was among the outnumbered counter-protesters.
“I’m not showing my support for the Israeli government or the war in Gaza but just for the Israeli people who have gone through something so, so terrible two years ago,” the student said. “A lot of my friends who are Jewish, who are Israeli, on a day like today they’re terrified and they feel completely alone in their pain of that day.
“This is not a show of my political affiliation, this is just a show for my compassion for the Jewish people.”
With Palestinian flags, keffiyehs, drums and a banner listing the names and ages of those killed in Gaza, students snaked their way through streets walled by police to the London School of Economics and then Soas University of London, with many saying the government was attempting to silence them.
Among those marching was Thahrima Ali, 21. The third-year student at King’s College London said it was “really important that we show our presence today”, as protesters chanted “free Palestine” and “Israel is a terror state”.
The protests came days after a terrorist attack at a north Manchester synagogue in which two Yom Kippur worshippers, Melvin Cravitz, 66 and Adrian Daulby, 53, were killed. Jihad al-Shamie, 35, was shot dead at the scene after using a knife and a car to attack worshippers.
“It’s completely separate,” said Ali, who is Muslim and grew up in Tower Hamlets, east London. “What happened in Manchester was abhorrent but I don’t think that should silence the protesters.”
While there were Jewish protesters present on Tuesday in support of the march as well as against, the Jewish Leadership Council said there were no memorial events planned for the day, which had instead taken place on the weekend as the anniversary coincided with Sukkot, a seven-day Jewish holiday that commemorates the biblical exodus of Jews from Egypt.
Jewish students hold a small counter-demonstration outside King’s College London. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP
Among the protesters was Leopold Berger, 24, from the Netherlands. He had heard the protest from class at LSE, put on his keffiyeh and Palestinian football jersey and joined in.
Responding to Starmer’s description in the Times of the protests as “un-British”, he said: “One day it’ll be British to be for a pro-Palestinian state … but right now it isn’t. These things fluctuate based on national identity or what the government decides is in their national interests.”
In Scotland, the University of Glasgow said it “abhors the glorification of violence” after a post on a student group’s Instagram appeared to celebrate the Hamas attacks.
“Whilst we commemorate two years of genocide … we celebrate the glorious Al-Aqsa Flood,” a post promoting the “student intifada” said on the Glasgow University Justice for Palestine Society’s Instagram page.
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At lunchtime, Glasgow students sat in the campus cloisters chanting “stop the bombing”, while in Edinburgh students gathered with homemade placards, some with the controversial slogan “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free”, in an event that attracted hundreds, including staff.
Palestine protesters at the University of Edinburgh. Photograph: Nick Forbes/PA
Louis Danker, a recent Edinburgh graduate and president of the Union of Jewish Students, said: “While we respect the right to protest, we are deeply disappointed at the time, place and manner of today’s demonstrations.
“Jewish students are seeking space to mourn their loved ones killed two years ago, and should never have to stand by as their peers glorify that day. We’ve been warning that violent language breeds violent acts, as we tragically saw in Manchester last week.”
Amina was among students at Strathclyde who gathered at Rottenrow Gardens in Glasgow waving Palestinian flags in defiance of the university’s request that they postpone the event out of “common decency”. Speaking of Starmer’s pleas, she countered: “The genocide is not stopping today.”
They were scenes senior politicians had been desperate to avoid. Speaking to Sky News, Phillipson had urged students to “pause”, “show some humanity” and “understand the deep sense of loss” people felt on 7 October.
Meanwhile, Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said: “The same hatred that fuelled those barbaric attacks still festers today. We see it in the so-called ‘protests’ that turn into hate marches on our streets.”
Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, called the events a “fucking disgrace” at a Conservative party conference fringe event.
Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, previously said repeated large-scale protests caused “considerable fear” for the Jewish community, and promised to give police greater powers to restrict protests.
