Pro-Palestine demonstrators say planned march WILL go ahead this weekend

Pro-Palestine demonstrations will go ahead in Manchester this weekend, according to organisers.

Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine say that a march set to take place in the city centre at noon on Satuday (October 4) will still be taking place.

It comes after Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood slammed those who attended a pro-Palestine marche last night (October 2), hours after a terror attack outside the Heaton Park synagogue.

She described the gathering as ‘un-British’ and called for any further protests to be cancelled.

Two people were killed after a man, later named by police as Jahid Al-Shamie, carried out a sickening terror attack outside Heaton Park synagogue in Crumpsall.

Today (October 3), the victims were named as Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, who both lived in the Crumpsall area.

Al-Shamie struck as dozens gathered at the synagogue to celebrate Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

This afternoon, the organisers of a demonstration taking place tomorrow (Saturday, October 4) say it will go ahead.

The protest is to mark ‘two years of genocide in Gaza’, according to an advertisement of the event.

Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine said that ‘the British media is repeatedly naming the three victims in Crumpsall yesterday and people will be reading the names of the Palestinians murdered by Israel all over the country tomorrow’.  

However, there is still opposition to the action in Manchester. 

The MP for Crumpsall, Graham Stringer, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service he ‘does not think the demonstrations should take place’.

The Labour politician added: “If organisers have the humanity they claim to have, they would call it off.

“The Jewish community has predicted something like this [attack] would happen. 

“They feel that they have not had enough moral and practical support and it’s up to the government and all people of goodwill to ensure that they have both the moral support and practical support.”

A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine shared: “The demonstrations for Gaza have been taking place every week in the city centres of Manchester and Salford during two years of Israel’s onslaught on the Palestinians. 

“This has been described as a genocide by the United Nations, Amnesty International and the International Criminal Court. 

“This genocide is ‘still going ahead’ – and as long as it does, the protests against it will do likewise. 

All these two years of Manchester’s demonstrations of support for Palestine do not seem to have been reported by the ‘mainstream’ media. 

“Hundreds more Palestinians have been killed this week including scores of children and at least 20000 Palestinian children have been murdered by Israel overall. 

“The Israelis are raining down terror in Gaza and the West Bank – and have been bombing Syria, Lebanon, Yemen (with UK help). 

“We will never turn our back on the Palestinian victims of genocide and 77 years of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine.  

“Everyone should be out trying to stop these crimes against humanity being televised every day.

“In honour of the over 20,000 children killed on Gaza, our demonstration will finish at the Know Their Names event organised by Friends of Al Aqsa and other groups in Manchester, where the names of children will be read out in commemoration of their lives, they are not numbers nor statistics, but are entire lives and dreams and future that Palestine has lost. 

“The British media is repeatedly naming the three victims in Crumpsall yesterday and people will be reading the names of the Palestinians murdered by Israel all over the country tomorrow.”

A ‘Manchester stands with Israel’ march is also scheduled for Sunday.

Both marches are set to take place during Storm Amy. The Met Office has issued an amber weather warning for most of the UK, predicting 60mph winds.

On the evening of the attack, a number of pro-Palestine marches took place throughout the country, including in Manchester, where a number of activists took to the city centre streets to demonstrate against the Israeli attacks in Gaza.

Forty people were arrested in pro-Palestine protests in the UK overnight on Thursday, including on suspicion of assaulting police, the Home Secretary said on Friday.

Shabana Mahmood said she was “disappointed” to see pro-Palestine marches go ahead hours after the atrocity.

Speaking on Sky News, Ms Mahmood said: “I was very disappointed to see those protests go ahead last night.

“I think that behaviour is fundamentally un-British. I think it’s dishonourable. I would have wanted those individuals to just take a step back.

“The issues that are driving those protests have been going on now for some time; they don’t look like they’re going to come to an end any day soon.

“They could have stepped back and just given a community that has suffered deep loss just a day or two to process what has happened and to carry on with the grieving process.”

Ms Mahmood added: “We will not tolerate that behaviour. Those individuals will face the full force of the law.”