Tens of thousands of Moroccans protest ties with Israel on eve of Oct. 7 anniversary
Demonstrators in Rabat wave Palestinian flags and portraits of Hassan Nasrallah, calling for the kingdom’s 2020 normalization deal with Israel to be revoked
Tens of thousands of Moroccans protested in Rabat on Sunday against the kingdom’s four-year-old normalization of ties with Israel, one day before the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack.
Demonstrators waved Palestinian flags and brandished signs denouncing the country’s participation in the Abraham Accords normalization deals, chanting “Resistance does not die” and “The people want an end to normalization.”
They also waved Lebanese flags and held portraits of slain Hezbollah terror group leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike on southern Beirut on September 27.
Hezbollah has been attacking Israeli border communities and military posts since the day after Hamas’s massacre last year, and in recent weeks Israel has escalated its fighting against the terror group, launching a limited ground operation in southern Lebanon last week.
Khadija Mokhtari, a 56-year-old retiree living in the capital, told AFP at the protest near parliament, “We consider Palestine to be a national cause.”
She said she joined the protest to demonstrate against “flagrant injustice, Israeli killings and the genocide” against Palestinians.
Another protester, Noufissa Souad, 39, said: “They are going to kill the entire Palestinian people for their land,” and said Arab and Muslim leaders must speak out.
“We are hand in hand with the enemy,” she added.
The protest came a day before the first anniversary of Hamas’s attack last year, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Israel responded with a ground offensive in Gaza to destroy the terror group and return the hostages. The ongoing war has also seen fighting with other Iranian-backed groups in the region, as well as Iran itself.
The streets of Rabat also saw anti-Israel demonstrations last year in the immediate wake of the Hamas attack, with protesters burning an Israeli flag and celebrating the onslaught.
Morocco established official ties in Israel in 2020 as part of the US-led Abraham Accords, which also saw agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan.
The North African kingdom has officially called for “the immediate, complete and permanent halt to the Israeli war on Gaza,” but has not publicly discussed reversing normalization.
Ahead of October 7, 2023, ties between Israel and Morocco had expanded rapidly, with Rabat buying advanced drones and other military equipment as well as cybersecurity products.
Bilateral trade grew by a third in 2022, while some 200,000 Israelis visited Morocco, according to official figures. Some 700,000 Israelis are of Moroccan descent, and many have maintained strong ties.
Sunday’s rally was organized by the National Action Group for Palestine, which brings together leftist groups and the Islamist Justice and Development Party.