Thousands Protest in Paris, Mexico Against Israel’s Deadly Rafah Attack
About 10,000 people took part in a demonstration near the Israeli embassy in Paris on Monday against Israel’s deadly shelling of the Gaza city of Rafah.
The demonstration gathered a few hundred metres (yards) from the embassy in the center of the French capital before protesters chanted “We are all Gaza children”, “Free Gaza” and other pro-Palestinian slogans.
The gathering was organised a day after Israel’s strike on Hamas targets in Rafah which set off a fire in a tent city where 45 people died, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Israel has faced international condemnation over the attack.
“It is a massacre too many,” said François Rippe of the Association France-Palestine Solidarity group that organized the rally, that the Paris police service said involved about 10,000 people.
“They start a fire in a camp for displaced, they burn people and we (France) don’t even summon the Israeli ambassador to ask for an account. It is just not acceptable,” Rippe added.
One large banner at the rally showed presidents Emmanuel Macron of France Joe Biden of the United States and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the slogan “it is humanity they are assassinating”. France and the United States have condemned the Israeli attack.
Also Clashes broke out Tuesday between police and protesters outside the Israeli embassy in Mexico, rallying against the country’s military offensive in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, AFP journalists said.
Some protesters covered their faces and threw stones at riot police who blocked their path to the diplomatic complex in the city’s Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood.
Around 200 people joined the “Urgent action for Rafah” demonstration, about 30 of whom started to break down barriers preventing them from reaching the Israeli mission.
Police officers deployed tear gas and threw back the stones hurled at them by protesters.
The demonstration was called in response to an Israeli strike which ignited an inferno in a displacement camp outside Rafah, killing 45 people according to Palestinian officials.
