Europe sees fragmented pro-Palestinian protests three years after 7 October

JTA – Pro-Palestinian protests commemorating the third anniversary of Hamas’s 7 October attacks on Israel were competing for attention with other domestic issues across Europe. 

Demonstrations of solidarity with Palestinians on Wednesday faced arrests or restrictions in Germany, Britain, and the Netherlands. In France and Spain, they were overshadowed by mass protests over education and housing. 

Turnout fell from the pro-Palestinian rallies around the first anniversary of 7 October in 2024, when tens of thousands marched across cities including London, Rome, Paris, and Berlin. 

Larger rallies could happen this weekend. In London, a march organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign on 10 October is expected to draw about 10 000 people, according to local media. The Israeli Ministry for Diaspora Affairs forecasted that Saturday will be the largest single day of protests this year, counting 357 pro-Palestinian demonstrations worldwide between 1 and 14 October. 

One of the largest protests on Wednesday was in Berlin, where 700 people gathered in the city’s Kreuzberg neighbourhood. They included Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist who joined a flotilla attempting to carry aid to Gaza last year. Berlin police said they made more than 30 arrests and initiated investigations into “propaganda-related and violent offences”. 

Thunberg told independent journalist James Jackson after the protest ended, “People keep flooding the streets protesting against genocide, and the police keep using extreme brutality against those protesters. That says everything about who they are protecting.” 

In London, the Metropolitan Police arrested 11 people on Wednesday at pro-Palestinian protests across the city. Five people were arrested at a protest outside the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the largest Jewish communal organisation in Britain, and accused of inciting racial hatred. 

The Board of Deputies said in a statement, “On the anniversary of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, masked protesters demonstrated outside our office today, chanting about ‘intifada’ and harassing our neighbours.” 

The Metropolitan Police previously imposed strict restrictions on a student march that drew about 100 people, according to the BBC. Police said the march could not legally be banned despite calls to move it to a different day, adding, “We know how concerned Jewish communities are at the timing of this event.” 

Hundreds more people gathered for pro-Palestinian rallies at universities in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Protesters at the University of Edinburgh demanded the school “divest” from Israel, The Independent reported. 

In the Netherlands, about 150 people demonstrated in Amsterdam’s Dam Square. Some carried banners that said “We support Hamas” and burned an Israeli flag while chanting, “Long live the 7th of October”, the Dutch broadcaster NOS reported. Mayor Femke Halsema disbanded the protest after some participants refused to follow the set route. Halsema said that no criminal offences were committed, although she called some banners and slogans “shocking and distasteful”, according to NL Times. 

Pro-Palestinian rallies in France were dwarfed by mass protests against deteriorating school conditions, drawing hundreds of thousands to the streets and sparking thousands of arrests over recent days. 

A Paris demonstration organised by the group Urgence Palestine, initially barred by police, was allowed to continue on Wednesday after the city’s administrative court suspended the ban. About 60 people were expected to attend, according to the court. 

The police said the organisers risked offending the Jewish community by choosing the date of 7 October, noting the antizionist slogans chanted at a previous demonstration on the second anniversary of the Hamas attacks. 

Administrative judges said in their decision, “The fact that the date chosen to organise this event may be shocking does not, in itself, constitute a disturbance of public order and does not in itself infringe upon human dignity.” 

In Spain, tens of thousands of protesters were focused on the country’s housing affordability crisis, demanding help for renters after lawmakers failed to pass emergency housing measures. 

A rally for Palestinians in Madrid took place on Sunday, rather than the 7 October anniversary, drawing thousands of protesters but fewer than previous years. Nearly 92 000 marched in the capital and about 70 000 in Barcelona ahead of the second anniversary last year. 

A protest of about 100 people in Barcelona on Wednesday was called by Samidoun, a group linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is designated by the United States as a terrorist organisation. Protesters called the Hamas attacks a “heroic operation”, according to the Spanish outlet Crónica Global.