• UK demonstration includes mock-up car representing Hind Rajab, a 5-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza Strip in January 2024
• 'Barclays Bank invests in Wimbledon, and Barclays is complicit in the genocide,' Damian McCarthy, protester and lawyer, tells Anadolu

LONDON 

Pro-Palestine campaigners on Monday held a demonstration outside the Wimbledon Championships to protest Barclays’ sponsorship of the annual tennis tournament.

Dozens of protesters assembled near Centre Court in response to a call from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Europe’s largest pro-Palestine advocacy group.

Other organizations, including War on Want and Campaign Against Arms Trade, also participated, all calling to “boycott Barclays.”

The 138th Wimbledon Championships run from June 30 to July 13.

According to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Barclays, a British multinational universal bank headquartered in London, "provides billions in investments and loans to companies arming Israel and acts as a primary dealer of Israel’s government bonds."

"Barclays, you can’t hide; we charge you with genocide" was among the slogans chanted by the crowd at the protest.

The bank has been facing backlash for its alleged ties with defense companies that produce equipment used by the Israeli army.

Carrying Palestinian flags, demonstrators condemned ongoing Israeli strikes on Gaza and called on the British government to “stop arming Israel.”

Holding banners criticizing the tournament over the sponsorship, the group also placed tennis balls that were partially painted red—to symbolize the bloodshed—on the ground at the demonstration.

The demonstration also included a mock-up of a car—riddled with holes—to represent the vehicle carrying five-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in January 2024. 

The car’s replica bore hundreds of bullet holes, marking the deaths of Rajab, six of her relatives, and two paramedics attempting to rescue them.  

Government 'completely complicit' in genocide

Speaking to Anadolu, Damian McCarthy, a protester and lawyer in London, said he is opposed to Israel's genocide against the Palestinian people.

"Barclays Bank invests in Wimbledon, and Barclays is complicit in the genocide," he said, adding that this is why they are encouraging people to boycott Barclays. And it is "working."

Saying that the bank "invested in South African apartheid, and they had to pull out because of consumer boycott," McCarthy explained that they are "doing the same here."

Criticizing the British government's policy on the Israel-Palestine conflict, he accused it of being "completely complicit" in the genocide.

Explaining that he used to work with Prime Minister Keir Starmer years ago when he was a lawyer, McCarthy said that now the premier is the head of a government "that's complicit in the genocide."

Calling the response to the protests "brilliant," he said: "People love what we're doing; people love the fact that we're raising (our voices) about the genocide and our government's complicity in genocide."

In response to criticisms and accusations, Barclays has previously stated that it "recognizes the profound human suffering caused by this conflict." 

According to its website, the bank said it is the responsibility of respective governments to determine foreign policy and laws that limit the delivery of weapons to any single country. 

"We have noted the UK and US Governments' concern with respect to civilian deaths and the targeting of aid workers, and will continue to monitor developments closely."