BERLIN (Dispatches) -- Major European cities have seen fresh protests in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, with demonstrators calling for an immediate ceasefire in the eighth month of Israel’s genocidal war against the besieged territory.
Thousands of Germans took to the streets across the capital Berlin, where participants carried Palestinian flags and placards that read, “Free Palestine,” and “Stop Genocide,” among others.
“We are here today at these demonstrations, as at all demonstrations since the terrible genocide of Israel against the Palestinians, to support this protest,” said Angela Niklaus, European candidate for the Socialist Equality Party.
“We are here because of the Palestine Protest because we think it’s important to support those people,” another protester said. “Palestine will never die.”
The mass rally in the German capital was heavily policed, with about 200 officers deployed to rein it. Before the demonstration began, law enforcement officials instructed participants on which slogans were permissible.
The central German city of Frankfurt was also the scene of protests as demonstrators gathered ahead of the European elections to demand reforms in EU policies.
The protesters called for more democracy, political accountability and an end to arms deliveries to Israel as well as other conflict zones across the world.
Voicing their opposition to Germany’s arms exports, the demonstrators said, “We are in favor of Germany stopping immediately delivering weapons and taking up peace talks with all crisis areas, with Russia, Ukraine, Israel and Palestine and all other war zones in the world.”
People also gathered outside Montmartre Sacré-Coeur, a Roman Catholic church, in Paris to protest against the Israeli war on Gaza.
Waving Palestinian flags, the demonstrators held banners and 
placards that read, “Stop Gaza Genocide,” and “Palestinians martyred, Israel expels.”
Symbolizing the Palestinian children affected by the months-long Zionist onslaught, some participants held effigies of dead children wrapped in sheets and covered in fake blood with the aim of drawing attention to the civilian casualties in Gaza.
Protesters in the Swedish capital of Stockholm marched to the Israeli embassy during a demonstration.
The demonstrators gathered after the call of numerous civil society organizations, and chanted slogans including, “Freedom for Palestine.”
Protesters demanded that Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip be recognized as war crimes and called for the arrest of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal.
Pro-Palestine protests by students at the University College Dublin (UCD) continued in Ireland’s capital, with demonstrators gathering on a bridge near campus on the 15th day of an encampment set up to support Palestine on UCD’s grounds.
The latest pro-Palestine demonstrations are part of a broader wave of global protests calling for an end to the Israeli genocide and greater international intervention to protect civilians in Gaza.
The mass protests come amid international pressure on the Zionist regime as the occupying entity forges ahead with a large-scale ground invasion in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.
The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Saturday ordered Tel Aviv to swiftly stop its military aggression against the densely-populated area, where more than one million Palestinians have taken refuge.