Met Police arrest more than 425 Palestine Action supporters at ban protest

Violent clashes broke out as tensions rose through the afternoon in central London.

The protest took on an increasingly anti-police tone featuring chants of "shame on you", "you’re supporting genocide" and some referencing former officer and Sarah Everard murderer, Wayne Couzens.

There were frantic scenes in the area throughout the afternoon, as officers drew their batons during clashes, forced their way through crowds carrying arrested protesters and had screaming arguments with demonstrators.

A spokesman from the force said: "Officers policing the Defend Our Juries (DOJ) protest in Parliament Square have been subjected to an exceptional level of abuse including punches, kicks, spitting and objects being thrown, in addition to verbal abuse.

"Any assaults against officers will not be tolerated and arrests have already been made. We will identify all those responsible and prosecute to the full extent of the law."

Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Claire Smart, who led the policing operation said: "Over the course of the afternoon, we deployed more than 2,500 officers to manage protests across the capital.

"The majority of protests, including the Palestine Coalition march attended by around 20,000 people, passed with very few arrests.

"This was not the case at the protest organised by Defend Our Juries in support of the proscribed terrorist organisation Palestine Action."

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However, a DOJ spokesperson called it an "astonishing claim" from the police. A spokesman said: "I’ve been here all day and I haven’t seen any violence or aggression from anyone.

"The people they’re arresting, it’s all people sitting here silently holding signs, a lot of elderly, many disabled people, veterans, vicars, healthcare workers in their scrubs, just like the picture of peaceful protest.

"I’ve only seen aggression and violence from the police.

"It’s just being made a mockery of, really, by the numbers of people who are defying it and will continue to defy it until the Government drop it, and now there’s a new Home Secretary I think there’s a real opportunity for it to be dropped and this sends a strong message on her first day since her appointment that she’s inheriting this ban which is just unenforceable."

One protester was seen with blood streaming down his face and several others fell over in a crush at one point.

A man, who appeared to be in his 50s, unfurled an Israeli flag in front of demonstrators, sparking a scuffle as protesters tried to seize it.

Police rushed in and escorted him away as a small crowd followed, calling him a "baby killer", "paedophile" and "Zionist", and chanting "arrest him now".

Protesters also gathered for a separate demonstration in the capital organised by the Palestine Coalition, which includes the groups Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War, while rallies were held in Belfast and Edinburgh.

Palestine Action was banned as a terror organisation in July after the group claimed responsibility for an action in which two Voyager planes were damaged at RAF Brize Norton on June 20.

The Home Office is set to appeal against the High Court ruling allowing Palestine Action’s co-founder, Huda Ammori, to proceed with a legal challenge against the Government over the group’s ban.

Ms Ammori took legal action against the department over then-home secretary Yvette Cooper’s decision to proscribe the group under anti-terror laws.

The decision meant membership of, or support for, the direct action group a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Judith Gradwell, 80, who held a sign that read, "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action" said she thought the decision to ban the group was "ridiculous."

She told The Guardian: "You would think after the Iraq war that they’d listen a bit more to what people on the streets were saying."

Anne Karpf, who said her mother was a Holocaust survivor, added: "What they would be thinking, seeing what is happening now and being done in their name. I feel pretty certain that they would be horrified."

A spokesman from Amnesty International said the arrests showed that "something is going very wrong here in the UK."

In Gaza, the Israeli military warned Palestinians in Gaza City to leave for the south on Saturday before bombing a high-rise tower as its forces advance deeper into the enclave's largest urban area.

Israeli forces have been carrying out an offensive on the suburbs of the northern city for weeks after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to capture it.

Netanyahu says Gaza City is a Hamas stronghold and capturing it is necessary to defeat the Palestinian Islamist militants, whose October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the war.

The assault threatens to displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians sheltering there from nearly two years of fighting. Before the war, around a million people, nearly half of Gaza's population, lived in the city.

Palestinian militants took 251 hostages into the enclave after a Hamas-led cross-border attack on southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023 that killed about 1,200 people.

More than 64,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, local health authorities say, with much of the enclave reduced to ruins and its residents facing a humanitarian crisis.

There are also growing calls within Israel, led by families of hostages and their supporters, to end the war in a diplomatic deal that would secure the release of the remaining 48 captives.

Israeli officials believe 20 of the hostages are alive.