KARACHI (Dispatches) – People across the world have held fresh rallies to express solidarity with Palestinians and demand an end to the Zionist regime’s war on Gaza.
Tens of thousands of protesters gathered on a main thoroughfare in Pakistan’s second-largest city, Lahore, on Sunday to show solidarity with the people of Gaza, where Israeli forces have intensified strikes and launched a ground operation.
Protesters, including women and children, gathered on Canal Road near the Punjab University and marched towards Kalma Square, waving tri-color Palestinian flags and wearing arms and headbands engraved with the slogan “Labbaik ya Gaza” (Aqsa, we are here).
Organized by Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the country’s mainstream religiopolitical party, the march is viewed as one of the biggest rallies held in Pakistan since Oct. 7.
Organizers claimed that over 100,000 people attended the rally, while security officials estimated that the figure was closer to 50,000.
“Palestine will be free,” “Down with Israel,” and “Stop genocide against Palestinians” were among the slogans inscribed on banners and placards carried by protesters.
“Labbaik, Labbaik, Labbaik ya Gaza” ( Gaza we are here), thousands chanted in unison as JI chief Siraj-ul-Haq, wearing a “keffiyeh” scarf, and other leaders made a hand-chain to express solidarity with Palestinians.
Thousands of people also flooded the streets of the Irish capital in solidarity with the Palestinian people for the sixth week in a row, calling for an end to the ongoing Israeli aggression in Gaza.
Pro-Palestinian protests began from the Garden of Remembrance and marched across the River Liffey with protesters waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans.
“In our thousands in our millions, we are all Palestinians,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Ceasefire now,” they chanted.
Protesters also marched to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Iveagh House, where they took part in a sit-in.
In Belfast, too, thousands of people also took part in a pro-Palestine protest. They marched from Writers Square to the offices of Northern Secretary Chris Heaton Harris in the city center.
In a press conference in Paris on Tuesday, Irish Prime Minister Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that Ireland was “working really hard at the EU level and UN level to put pressure on” a ceasefire to be implemented.
About 2,500 pro-Palestinian protesters marched in Berlin in solidarity with the Palestinian people in the besieged Gaza Strip as German police accompanied the demonstration with several hundred officers.
The protesters demanded a free Palestine in chants as they walked through the streets, calling for Israel to “stop the war on Gaza.”
They also accused the German government of taking a biased approach to the Gaza war by siding with the Zionist regime.