\n<\/p>\n
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 \u201cun-British\u201d rallies.<\/p>\n
The prime minister said the events showed \u201clittle respect for others\u201d while Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary; Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick also spoke out on the issue.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m 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,\u201d the student said. \u201cA lot of my friends who are Jewish, who are Israeli, on a day like today they\u2019re terrified and they feel completely alone in their pain of that day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a show of my political affiliation, this is just a show for my compassion for the Jewish people.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Among those marching was Thahrima Ali, 21. The third-year student at King\u2019s College London said it was \u201creally important that we show our presence today\u201d, as protesters chanted \u201cfree Palestine\u201d and \u201cIsrael is a terror state\u201d.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s completely separate,\u201d said Ali, who is Muslim and grew up in Tower Hamlets, east London. \u201cWhat happened in Manchester was abhorrent but I don\u2019t think that should silence the protesters.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Jewish students hold a small counter-demonstration outside King\u2019s College London.<\/span> Photograph: Kin Cheung\/AP<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Responding to Starmer\u2019s description in the Times of the protests as \u201cun-British\u201d, he said: \u201cOne day it\u2019ll be British to be for a pro-Palestinian state \u2026 but right now it isn\u2019t. These things fluctuate based on national identity or what the government decides is in their national interests.\u201d<\/p>\n In Scotland, the University of Glasgow said it \u201cabhors the glorification of violence\u201d after a post on a student group\u2019s Instagram appeared to celebrate the Hamas attacks.<\/p>\n \u201cWhilst we commemorate two years of genocide \u2026 we celebrate the glorious Al-Aqsa Flood,\u201d a post promoting the \u201cstudent intifada\u201d said on the Glasgow University Justice for Palestine Society\u2019s Instagram page.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n At lunchtime, Glasgow students sat in the campus cloisters chanting \u201cstop the bombing\u201d, while in Edinburgh students gathered with homemade placards, some with the controversial slogan \u201cfrom the river to the sea Palestine will be free\u201d, in an event that attracted hundreds, including staff.<\/p>\n <\/span>Palestine protesters at the University of Edinburgh.<\/span> Photograph: Nick Forbes\/PA<\/p>\n Louis Danker, a recent Edinburgh graduate and president of the Union of Jewish Students, said: \u201cWhile we respect the right to protest, we are deeply disappointed at the time, place and manner of today\u2019s demonstrations.<\/p>\n \u201cJewish 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\u2019ve been warning that violent language breeds violent acts, as we tragically saw in Manchester last week.\u201d<\/p>\n Amina was among students at Strathclyde who gathered at Rottenrow Gardens in Glasgow waving Palestinian flags in defiance of the university\u2019s request that they postpone the event out of \u201ccommon decency\u201d. Speaking of Starmer\u2019s pleas, she countered: \u201cThe genocide is not stopping today.\u201d<\/p>\n They were scenes senior politicians had been desperate to avoid. Speaking to Sky News, Phillipson had urged students to \u201cpause\u201d, \u201cshow some humanity\u201d and \u201cunderstand the deep sense of loss\u201d people felt on 7 October.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said: \u201cThe same hatred that fuelled those barbaric attacks still festers today. We see it in the so-called \u2018protests\u2019 that turn into hate marches on our streets.\u201d<\/p>\n Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, called the events a \u201cfucking disgrace\u201d at a Conservative party conference fringe event.<\/p>\n Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, previously said repeated large-scale protests caused \u201cconsiderable fear\u201d for the Jewish community, and promised to give police greater powers to restrict protests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 \u201cun-British\u201d rallies. The prime minister said the events showed \u201clittle respect for others\u201d while Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary; Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick also spoke out on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[505,3045,4958,1240,560,494],"class_list":{"0":"post-26540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-ahead","9":"tag-anniversary","10":"tag-october","11":"tag-palestine","12":"tag-protest","13":"tag-protests"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}