LONDON

Thousands of pro-Palestine supporters gathered Friday outside Israel’s Embassy in London to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, where Tel Aviv has imposed a policy of hunger and scarcity.

Protesters hit pots and pans with spoons to condemn Israel’s deliberate starvation of Palestinians, highlighting the plight of civilians dying from hunger under Israeli attacks and a blockade.

A small group of Israeli supporters held a counter-protest near the embassy. Some attempted to provoke the Palestinian demonstrators by entering the protest area, but police intervened to separate the two groups.

- Barbarity upon barbarity

Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and one of the organizers of the protest, addressed the crowd from a platform set up in front of the embassy.

“Israel began the first stages of its ground invasion that will see over a million people forced to flee from Gaza City. Today, Israel Katz, Israel's defense minister, proudly stated, and I quote: 'Israel is preparing to open the gates of hell and regroup, reduce Gaza City to ruins.' Barbarity upon barbarity upon barbarity, and today from our government, nothing but further empty words of condemnation.”

“Today, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he was morally outraged about what Israel is doing. Remember that two weeks ago, when he met with Donald Trump, (British Prime Minister) Keir Starmer said that he recognized that the British people were revolted by the scenes they are seeing from Gaza. Not so revolted, not so morally outraged that Lammy and Starmer -- they won't continue to sell Israel weapons. Won't continue to offer it military cooperation, won't continue to trade with it, won't continue to treat it like a normal state, rather than what it is, a barbaric rogue state that as long as it continues with its genocidal behavior, does not belong amongst the community of civilized nations,” he said.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, said Friday that the famine in Gaza that is deliberately created by the Israeli government is confirmed after also being formally confirmed by the UN-backed global hunger monitoring system, IPC.

Israel has killed nearly 62,300 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.