More than half a million people flooded the streets of central London on Saturday to demand an end to the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip, as part of the commemoration of the 77th anniversary of the Nakba and to condemn Israel’s new military offensive.

The march, organized by a broad coalition of pro-Palestinian groups, departed at noon from the Embankment, crossed iconic bridges such as Westminster and Waterloo, and concluded in front of Downing Street (the Prime Minister’s official residence) with speeches by the organizers. Slogans such as “Stop the genocide in Gaza” and “Free Palestine” were present throughout the mobilization.

Simultaneously, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of cities like Stockholm, Paris, Berlin, and Athens, among others, in a wave of global solidarity with the Palestinian people that commemorated the forced displacement of 700,000 Palestinians and the murders and ethnic cleansing carried out against the Arab population during the artificial founding of the State of Israel in 1948. Demonstrators denounced what they see as a new Nakba that seeks to advance an open genocide in the Gaza Strip and the expulsion of the Palestinian population from their lands once again.

Chronicle of the Mobilization in London

Hundreds of buses arrived in London early Saturday, carrying activists from dozens of towns and cities across the United Kingdom. Early in the morning, a cloudy sky accompanied the arrival of protesters at the Embankment Tube station, where rows of Palestinian banners and flags awaited the start of the march

At noon, the column began to move, with protesters wearing keffiyehs waving in the breeze and carrying photographs of victims of Gaza. Young and old activists, workers, and entire families filled the streets in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The march advanced across Westminster Bridge, parallel to Parliament, continued over Waterloo Bridge, and ended in Whitehall, in front of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s residence. Along the way, slogans such as “Stop the genocide in Gaza,” “Free Palestine,” and “Israel is a terror state” were chanted, while thousands of participants demanded an end to British complicity with Israel and a halt to arms supplies to the country.

During the event, Fares Amer, spokesperson for the Palestinian Forum in Britain, warned: “The goal of the genocide in Gaza is to continue the work they began 77 years ago, but they will fail.”

For her part, Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition demanded that Keir Starmer and Donald Trump stop arming Israel, and denounced the disgusting hypocrisy of supporting the bombing while simultaneously denying humanitarian aid.

More Action Needed in Response to the New Israeli Offensive

In early May 2025, the Israeli army announced a full-scale offensive in Gaza, with plans to completely occupy the Strip and to force hundreds of thousands of Gazans southward from their homes, while threatening to expel them to Egypt or Jordan. Meanwhile, the displaced would be held in “concentration camps” under armed guard by the Israeli army and mercenary U.S. contracting companies. As part of this plan, over the past week, Israel has stepped up its bombing raids, killing hundreds of Palestinian civilians, increasing international outrage and urgency for protests.

While half a million voices were raised in London, thousands gathered in Stockholm at Odenplan Square, waving flags and banners with slogans like “Stop the Zionist regime’s genocide in Palestine.” In Paris, tens of thousands demanded an end to the attacks on Gaza; in Berlin, protesters gathered at Potsdamer Platz under the slogan “Your silence is complicity”; and in Athens, the column marched past both the U.S. and Israeli embassies wearing keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags. Significant demonstrations also took place in Madrid, Geneva, Toronto, San Francisco, São Paulo, Amsterdam, Milan, Dublin, Hamburg, and Melbourne, all linking the commemoration of the Nakba with the denunciation of the current humanitarian crisis and Israel’s new offensive.

The May 17 protests not only symbolized Palestinian resistance, but also a new level of global solidarity that has been ignited by images of extreme famine and Israel’s new plans to permanently occupy Gaza and expel Palestiniains. The scale of the mobilization in London and major world capitals reflects a powerful message: the Nakba of 1948 and the suffering of Gaza in 2025 are intrinsically linked. Just as protests began to renew at universities in both the United States and the United Kingdom, which last year questioned their governments and university administrations’ dealings with the State of Israel, the mobilizations of recent days once again demonstrate the need and urgency of building a massive international movement in solidarity with the Palestinian cause and against the open-air genocide of the State of Israel and the complicity of the major imperialist powers.

Originally published in Spanish on La Izquierda Diario on May 19