From the Liveblog of
Friday, February 7, 2025
British anti-Israel group started planning mass protest just hours after Hamas launched Oct. 7 onslaught
Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel activists in the UK began organizing a large anti-Israel demonstration in central London on October 7, 2023, even as the Hamas onslaught in southern Israel was still unfolding, UK news outlets report, citing information revealed by the Freedom of Information Act.
A recent request for information from the Metropolitan Police showed that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign called the police shortly after midday on October 7 — some eight hours after Hamas breached the Israel-Gaza border in multiple places, invaded Israel and began its slaughter — to inform the police of its plan to hold a demonstration against Israel the following Saturday, on October 14, 2023.
At the time that the request was filed, the massacre was ongoing and the IDF was scrambling to regain control of the southern communities invaded by Hamas. Israel was still far from fully understanding the scale of the unfolding disaster. In total, some 1,200 people were killed that day, most of them civilians, and 251 were taken hostage and dragged back to the Gaza Strip.
The police approved the October 14 demonstration, and it went ahead, as did other anti-Israel marches and protests elsewhere in the UK.
“The Met was contacted on Saturday, Oct. 7 at approximately 12:50 p.m., via telephone call and informed of the intention to protest,” a police spokesperson said in response to the request for information, as cited by the Telegraph. “The Met committed this to our systems on the same day and are satisfied being contacted by telephone was a sufficient means in which to notify the MPS as the event was taking place seven days after notification.”
Responding to the report, the Campaign Against Antisemitism tells the Daily Mail that “this revelation ends the charade that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign is a peaceful advocacy group.”
“For sixteen months, the Metropolitan Police has allowed regular anti-Israel marches by a group that rushed to activism while Jews were being slaughtered,” the group adds.
In a statement to the Telegraph, PSC defends its decision to begin organizing a protest on October 7, claiming that “it was already clear” Israel would respond to the Hamas onslaught with “indiscriminate violence.”
“It is entirely appropriate, therefore, that PSC would call for a protest that would seek an immediate ceasefire and call for the root causes of Israeli occupation and apartheid to be addressed,” a spokesman for the group says.
He accuses those opposed to the PSC’s actions on October 7 of attempting to “deflect attention from the crimes against humanity that Israel has committed.”
Thousands of people rallied on October 14 in London and other UK cities, demanding “Freedom for Palestine” and denouncing Israel. In London, demonstrators massed near BBC News’ headquarters before an afternoon rally near then-prime minister Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street office and residence. There were clashes in Trafalgar Square when activists threw bottles, placards and flares at the police, according to the Daily Mail, and at least 15 people were arrested.
