Jewish Students Demonstrate in London in Support of UN Rapporteur Albanese
Jewish students, in solidarity with Palestine, held a demonstration yesterday, Monday, in support of the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, outside the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
Albanese is known for her human rights stances against the genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for more than a year, which has left tens of thousands of civilian martyrs and wounded and an unprecedented humanitarian disaster.
On November 5, Albanese said, “What is happening in Gaza, the systematic starvation with the aim of destruction, is not war, but should be called genocide.”
Pro-Israeli protesters gathered outside the School of Oriental and African Studies ahead of a scheduled speech by Albanese at the college on Monday, holding up signs reading “Stop Francesca” and chanting slogans against her being accepted at British universities.
Students in solidarity with Palestine gathered in front of the college building in support of Albanese and against the protest carried out by a group calling itself the “Campaign Against Anti-Semitism,” chanting slogans such as “Free Palestine,” “Stop the Genocide,” and “No Peace Without Justice.”
Some of the demonstrators also carried banners targeting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), whose activities Israel recently decided to ban.
British police were seen taking extensive security measures during the counter-protests.
With American support, Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since October 7, 2023, leaving more than 146,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that killed dozens of children and the elderly, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
