Palestine solidarity rally in King George Square, Brisbane, on Friday. Source: own work
Thousands of people joined peaceful protests in solidarity with Palestine across Australia’s major cities this weekend, including Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, and Adelaide.
Sydney’s protest went ahead, attracting some 6,000 people, despite some tension and a heightened police presence, and Melbourne had the biggest crowd of around 10,000.
Protesters carried signs and chanted messages demanding an end to the Gaza blockade and the decades-long attacks committed by Israel on the Palestinian people.
These protests come after Israel launched dozens of attacks on Gaza in response to the attack on Israel last weekend by Hamas – a Palestinian military and political group.
Many of those speaking at protests across Australia commented that this conflict did not begin last weekend with Hamas’s attack on Israel, but that the people of Palestine have been the victims of genocide by Israel for over 75 years.
“(Israel’s actions) are the very definition of collective punishment,” Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi told protestors in Sydney.
Members of the Jewish community also joined the protests, calling for an end to the brutal ongoing attacks on the Palestinian people.
After Hamas’s retaliatory attacks on Israel, the Israeli military bombarded Gaza on a scale never seen before, putting the enclave, which is home to 2.3 million Palestinians, under total siege.
According to Gaza authorities, this attack has killed over 2,300 Palestinians and wounded almost 10,000.
A quarter of the Palestinians killed were children.
The increase in police presence in Sydney’s rally came after another Palestinian support protest in Sydney, where some protestors were allegedly chanting offensive ‘anti-Semitic’ slogans.
However, the organisers of the protest, Palestine Action Group Sydney, denounced these slogans and told the small group chanting them that they were not welcome in the demonstrations.
“We are an anti-racist and anti-colonial movement and we refuse to fight racism with racism,” they said.
“If you are an antisemite, you are not welcome at our rallies and are not a part of our movement. As we did (on Monday) we will ask you to leave and we will continue to do this.”
The same behaviour did not occur again at these recent demonstrations on the weekend, and the protests remained peaceful, with members of all different communities coming together for Palestine and against all forms of racism.
