Thousand attend Melbourne Gaza rally

30 Dec 2008, 7:21 pm   -   Source: SBS staff and agencies
6 Comments
Share This
+ Comment
6
Around a thousand people marched against Israel's Gaza offensive in Melbourne (SBS)

Around a thousand people marched against Israel's Gaza offensive in Melbourne (SBS)

Around one thousand people have gathered in Melbourne's city centre to protest Israel's Gaza offensive.

RELATED

Around one thousand people have gathered in Melbourne's city centre to protest Israel's Gaza offensive.

The protesters marched along Melbourne's Swanston Street, chanting "Free Palestine" and "Israel out".

The rally, organised by an organisation called Justice for Palestine and the Palestinian Community, drew a diverse crowd, with Muslims and non-Muslims from different ethnic backgrounds supporting the cause.

The association says the emergency rally was needed in order to call " for people to support the citizens of Gaza who have been subjected to another massacre by the occupying Israeli Occupation Force".

There have been protests across the globe since Israel began its offensive four days ago.

Several people were arrested in protests in London, though Australian protests have so far remained peaceful.

Israel says the offensive is retaliation for persistent rocket attacks from the Hamas-led territory.

Israeli officials say the blitz is targetting militants, but Palestinian sources say hundreds have been killed, and over 1,500 more injured.

 

 

  • Follow us: 
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Youtube

Your Comments

3Kids&Stunned

FutureWatch - from Melbourne, 3 years ago

Israel is an occupying group of terrorists - the fact that they broke the truce and then turned to their global propaganda machine to say that HAMAS (a political party - not a terrist group) broke it first - plenty of proof on this if you really need to know that Israel is a propagandist, land grabbing, inhumane illegal state.
ISRAEL HAS NOT ONE SHRED OF RIGHT TO BE WHERE THEY ARE, DO WHAT THEY ARE DOING let alone complain - America should invade you for using WMD's - Chemical warfare - Really!

Israel can't win for loosing.

Hausmaus - from Brandon, Fla, 3 years ago

A mile from your house a local gang is launching mortar fire towards your house. Your wife and kids are terrified, cannot come out. 1. Should you allowed these gangsters to wipe out your family? 2. You must not defend yourself, no matter what? 3. Wait for the UN to commdem the gangsters? 4. Aim your fiftty caliber machine gun towards the gangsters, and put them out of their missery? This is the same dilema that Israel finds itself in. It can't win for loosing.

Mrs

Lesley Snow - from Queanbeyan NSW, 3 years ago

Nothing has changed since the massacre of Palestinian civilians at Deir Yassin in 1948.
For Israel it is 'business as usual'.
Armies kitted out with hi tech weaponry supplied by the west - let loose on women and children while a pathetic procession of men generally devoid of ideas and their growing number of female counter parts file into international veneus for gratuitous discussions about how to broker a temporary ceasefire - how obscene.

March of the Lemmings

Jez - from Gladstone, 3 years ago

What a bunch of idiots, so they even know what they are protesting about?
Hamas declared the truce over, Hamas sent 200+ unguided rockets at Israeli cities. Now here people are getting antsy that Israel retaliated and not a word of commdemnation against Hamas for starting the whole thing.

Media can't count!

Sahar - from Auckland, 3 years ago

Justice for Palestine, it's interesting you noted the media's inability to count!
In Auckland, we had about 500, and they media reduced it to 150!
It's insane!

Rally for Gaza

Justice for Palestine - from Melbourne, 3 years ago

As the organiser of the rally in Melbourne, we estimated at least 2,500 to 3,000 people attended the rally (the police estimate was 1,500). 
The rally was organised by two groups - Justice for Palestine, which is a newly formed solidarity group - www.justiceforpalestine.org and the Palestinian Community Association, a the Palestinian community bodies.
Another rally will be held on Sunday, 4 Jan, Vic State Library at 2pm to protest the ongoing massacre.

Join the Discussion

Name
City / Suburb E.g. Artarmon, Sydney
Title
Comment
You have characters remaining.
Validation
What's this?
This is a captcha-picture. It is used to prevent mass-access by robots.
All submitted comments become the property of SBS. They are moderated, so we reserve the right to edit comments and remove HTML tags. Not all submitted comments will be published. Publication does not mean we endorse the opinions expressed. Please read our terms and conditions for more information.