Sheffield Palestine supporters have gathered for a second week to condemn governmental and media support for Israel and to show solidarity with Palestine.
Hillary Smith, a member of the Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign who helped set up the Sheffield Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid last year, said: “It’s just really, really heart-warming to see just ordinary people from all sectors of society, people in Sheffield that really get it about Palestine, that understand the huge injustice and just want to be here.
I am really pleased because there was just such a sense of togetherness, humanity and community, with people together and supporting each other.”
The demonstration was outside the Sheffield City Council building, where speeches were held by people who were directly affected by the conflict and protestors who wanted to show support.
Ms Smith said: “There was a passionate, but distressed young Palestinian man here, who is from Gaza, and I found out today that some of his families were massacred. The warmth and humanity shown to him was really moving.”
The first week of protests began after the council flew the flag of Israel above their building, which was forcibly taken down by a protestor who climbed the council roof.
As a result, there was a greater police presence and a police drone in the air.
Adhm Alshamy, a Palestine supporter at the event said: “It was amazing that the Israeli flag came down after our first protest. I don’t think it was planned because this act was the spontaneous movement of someone, a revolutionary.
The person who brought it down was by themselves, but it received loads of cheers and applause.”
“It was the right thing to take it down, but it is nothing against the Jewish people, or the people of Israel, but the flag represented apartheid, the segregation inflicted and the oppression, so all the people around knew that the symbol of injustice had to be brought down.”
The rally came as death tolls rose for both countries in the war and contested reports of an explosion of a hospital in Gaza.
Dr Richard Pit, another committee member of the Palestine committee campaign and founder of the Stop the War coalition said: “I was personally enraged about the Israel flag flying above the building because I could see the death toll and it was Israel that had publicly announced the day before we marched, that they were intent on committing war crimes.
Yet there was Sheffield, raising the flag of Israel after they announced that they were committing war crimes, so people were enraged, and I stood with them.”
