It was the first pro-Palestinian rally in the capital that had not first been banned by the police because of security fears
\nPARIS
\nThousands of people rallied in Paris on Sunday to demand an end to Israeli military operations in Gaza following the attack by Hamas militants, which organisers said was a \u201cmassacre\u201d.
\n\u201cIsrael assassin, Macron complicit\u201d and \u201cNo peace without decolonization\u201d were among the slogans at the demonstration in the Place de la Republique square in eastern Paris, called by a left-wing collective.
\nIt was the first pro-Palestinian rally in the capital that had not first been banned by the police because of security fears.
\nIt came after a court overturned a police ban on a similar rally in the capital on Thursday. Police estimated that 15,000 people attended the rally on Sunday, while organisers counted 30,000. No incidents were reported, authorities said.
\nOrganisers called for \u201ca just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis\u201d and urged France to \u201ccall for an immediate ceasefire\u201d.
\nThey also demanded a \u201chalt to the massacre in Gaza,\u201d where local health officials say more than 4,600 people have been killed in the Israeli response to the Hamas assault on October 7, which killed around 1,400.
\n\u201cYou don\u2019t have to be Palestinian to be affected by what is happening. For me, this type of gathering is a sign of the desperation,\u201d said Maya, a student who declined to give her last name.
\nIt\u2019s the only thing you can do on an individual level. The government has a role to play diplomatically. It must have stronger positions and not act as a support for Israel,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cMacron is giving Israel licence to kill,\u201d said Bertrand Heilbronn, the chairman of Association France Palestine Solidarity.
\nHeilbronn said that the Hamas attack had given rise to \u201clegitimate emotion\u201d among Israelis but that the military riposte was \u201ccriminal and serves to justify a was of elimination which the state of Israel is in the process of waging against the Palestinian people\u201d.
\nAround 40 organisations joined the rally, including Heilbronn\u2019s as well as the Jewish French Union for Peace and an association of France-based Muslims.
\nThe rally took place amid tight security after recent days brought bomb threats to several French airports and the Versailles palace outside Paris, a tourist hot spot.
\nSeveral thousand people also demonstrated their support for Palestinians meanwhile in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo with the city\u2019s mayor harking back the bloody siege the city endured during Bosnia\u2019s inter-ethnic war in the 1990s.
\n\u201cThe city that has endured the longest siege in modern history, Sarajevo, has the right to stand firmly with Gaza today,\u201d mayor Benjamina Karic said.
\n\u201cWe know what it\u2019s like when there\u2019s no water, no food, we know what it\u2019s like when children are killed,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was the first pro-Palestinian rally in the capital that had not first been banned by the police because of security fears PARIS Thousands of people rallied in Paris on Sunday to demand an end to Israeli military operations in Gaza following the attack by Hamas militants, which organisers said was a \u201cmassacre\u201d. \u201cIsrael assassin, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363490,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-363473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n