Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Morocco’s capital on Sunday against the conflict in the Gaza Strip where Israel has resumed its anti-Hamas offensive after a two-month ceasefire.
The largest pro-Palestinian protest in the capital Rabat for several months was called by the Islamist-dominated coalition the Justice and Development party.
Protesters were accompanied by chanting and the beating of drums as they marched down the city’s Mohammed V Avenue near parliament.
They waved flags including one bearing the image of slain Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar.
Children carried white shrouds stained in red to symbolise the thousands of young victims killed in the Palestinian territory during a year and a half of war.
Israel’s military resumed its offensive in Gaza on March 18, and since then, more than 1,330 people have been killed in the territory, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
The war began after Palestinian militants attacked communities in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
The overall death toll since the war erupted now stands at 50,695, according to the Gaza health ministry.
On Sunday, demonstrators chanted slogans including “The people want the liberation of Palestine!”, called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a criminal, and demanded an end to the siege of Gaza and for aid to be allowed in.
There were also calls for Morocco’s relations with Israel, re-established in 2020 under the US-brokered Abraham Accords, to be scrapped, with protesters calling such ties “treason”.
Rabat has officially called for an immediate and lasting cessation of the war in Gaza, without mention to the country’s ties with Israel.
