Crowds of protesters took to the streets of Dublin in support of Palestine one year into the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Those involved marched from the Garden of Remembrance along O’Connell Street Street towards Leinster House for a rally outside the Dáíl.
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign said it was supported by more than 160 Irish civil society groups “to mark the grim milestone of one year of Israel’s genocide in Gaza”.
Protesters called for “an end to Israel’s genocidal assault on the people of Gaza, for states to stop arming Israel, an end to the use of Irish airspace for transporting weapons, and for the Irish government to take action to hold Israel accountable”.
IPSC chair Zoe Lawlor said: “For a year now, Gaza has known only death, destruction and displacement.
“Famine and disease stalk the land, while the healthcare system has been eviscerated and all the while, western governments have allowed this to happen – whether by actively facilitating apartheid Israel’s brutal onslaught, or by doing nothing to stop it. This has to end.
“As a general election looms, we need to let the politicians that we want meaningful sanctions on Apartheid Israel, and we want them now.”
Meanwhile, arrests were made as tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered in central London ahead of the anniversary of the October 7th attacks in Israel.
The march, which culminated in speeches in Whitehall condemning the Government, came across counter-protests at the junction of Kingsway and Aldwych and at the junction of the Strand and Trafalgar Square.
Officers have made 17 arrests so far, the Metropolitan Police said, as part of a “significant” policing operation in place across the capital in response to planned protest and memorial events.
Two people were arrested on suspicion of supporting a proscribed organisation, one of which included a protester wearing what appeared to be a parachute, and there were eight arrests on suspicion of public order offences, four of which were allegedly racially aggravated.
Three people were arrested on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker, three arrested on suspicion of common assault and one person was arrested on suspicion of breaching a Public Order Act condition.
Conditions were imposed under the act to prevent disorder after a counter-protest group was deemed to be too close to the main march and well away from the agreed area.
Activists convened in Bedford Square on Saturday morning amid a heavy police presence.
According to organisers, they planned to “target” companies and institutions they say are “complicit in Israel’s crimes”, including Barclays Bank and the British Museum.
The demonstrators blocked Tottenham Court Road by gathering outside a Barclays branch just after midday, with a sign held near the entrance reading: “Shame on those who looked away from the sadistic genocide of mainly children in Gaza and the West Bank.”
A short while later they blocked Gower Street near the British Museum and police appeared to form a line to prevent the group meeting up with another group of activists in Russell Square.
They then gathered outside the British Library, chanting: “Yemen, Yemen make us proud. Turn another ship around”, and: “British Museum. Paint it red. Over 100,000 dead”.
