Protesters in Warsaw demand end to Israeli Gaza blockade
Hundreds of protesters took part in a Warsaw march urging Poland to push Israel to lift the aid blockage on Gaza, help evacuate Palestinians from Israeli-controlled territories and sanction what they called Israeli occupants.
The demonstration, dubbed "Together we will break the Gaza blockade", set off from the Presidential Palace at 2pm on Saturday and concluded three hours later in front of the parliament building.
Around 1,500 people took part in the rally at its peak, Jakub Gontarek from the Warsaw Police Headquarters told PAP. He added that the march "passed off peacefully."
The demands of the march participants included a full embargo on arms trade with Israel, material support for survivors of what they called the genocide, the evacuation of civilians from Gaza to Poland, the arrest of "Israeli war criminals" traveling to Poland, economic sanctions against products from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, the abolition of visa facilitation for Israeli citizens, and protection of the Polish delegation of the Global Sumud Flotilla bound for Gaza to break Israel's blockade on the Palestinian territory.
On the event's Facebook page, the organisers wrote that "for over 20 months, the Gaza Strip has been a site of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, committed by Israel against the Palestinians."
"This is the assessment of UN experts, international human rights organisations, including Israeli ones, as well as leading scholars of genocide and the history of the Holocaust. This is also confirmed by the rulings of the International Court of Justice and the images, recordings, and reports we all see on our screens," the post read.
"Children are dying of hunger while tons of humanitarian aid wait blocked at the Gaza Strip borders," it added.
The war in the Gaza Strip has been ongoing since October 7, 2023, when Hamas, which rules the territory, attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and kidnapping 251. About 20 hostages are still held. According to Gaza authorities, more than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli retaliation.
Amnesty International said in a recent report, "Israel is carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip, systematically destroying the health, well-being and social fabric of Palestinian life."
According to the Palestinian Authority, 258 people, including 110 children, have died of starvation there. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that, in July, close to 13,000 children were admitted to treatment centres in the Gaza Strip due to acute malnutrition, with over 2,800 suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM), the most lethal form of the condition. (PAP) mmr/jd
