Palestinian community in Belfast protested outside City Hall on Sunday afternoon after hundreds lost their lives during fighting in southern Israel. Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip launched a surprise rocket attack into Israel on Saturday morning while gunmen also crossed the border and to kill Israeli citizens and take many others hostage. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu has already launched retaliatory airstrikes and has since declared his country at war.
Estimates of the death toll continue to rise, with Israeli media stating that at least 600 people in Israel have been killed and Palestinian officials saying that over 300 people have been killed in Gaza.Mohammed Samaana grew up in Palestine and has lived in Belfast for 23 years.
“As a Palestinian, I witnessed first-hand the Israeli oppression. The shooting at random of innocent civilians, a classmate of mine was killed on his way home from school by the Israelis even though he wasn’t involved in anything,” he told the Irish News.
He also described being beaten and handcuffed by Israeli soldiers as a child.
The Big Apple chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America staged a pro-Palestine rally in Midtown, Manhattan Sunday in the wake of the attack on Israel by radical Islamic militants
Dozens of anti-Israel demonstrators faced off against counter-protesters in Times Square, shouting “Free Palestine” from behind police barricades as cops kept watch on the two increasingly confrontational sides.
They held up signs saying, “End all US aid to Israel,” and “Palestine will be free” as they chanted, and one attendee was pictured holding up a Swastika sticker on their phone.
“It’s not about Hamas,” said Mohammed Radi, a West Bank-born, New Jersey resident who said he came to the rally after learning about Israel’s retaliatory strikes against Hamas — which came after the terrorist group launched a surprise attack from the Gaza Strip on Saturday that left hundreds.