Thousands of demonstrators filled central London on Saturday to show support for Palestinians, gathering on the Embankment at midday before marching toward parliament, according to The Guardian. Many attendees wore keffiyehs and carried Palestinian flags, and some held signs reading "End the genocide" and "Free Palestine."
Organisers said 250,000 people had joined by Saturday afternoon. A two-minute silence was observed in memory of those killed in Gaza, and a bride and groom were among those taking part, The Guardian reports.
The Metropolitan police said on X that the front of the procession had reached Whitehall, where a rally was scheduled. The force reported several arrests, including a man and a woman carrying placards expressing support for Palestine Action, an organisation that has been proscribed. Police also detained a number of protesters on suspicion of criminal damage after they climbed onto the Battle of Britain memorial on Victoria Embankment.
Why it matters
This was the first national march of its kind since Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced broad sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements and said the UK government would formally treat Israel's occupation of the West Bank as unlawful in its entirety, according to The Guardian. Miliband also told the Commons that settler terrorists backed by Benjamin Netanyahu's government are carrying out ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
The timing also carried weight for policing. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Carl Galvin, who led the weekend operation, said the event's proximity to the third anniversary of the terror attack on Israel could affect communities more than earlier national marches. He said the force's presence would be significant and that officers would use Public Order Act powers to require anyone in the protest area wearing face coverings to conceal their identity to remove them.
What the marchers are demanding
Protesters called on the UK government to halt arms supplies to Israel. The Guardian notes that a range of bodies — among them the UN, Amnesty International, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, the last two of which are Israeli-based — have said Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
A ceasefire was declared a year ago, but Israeli airstrikes have continued in Gaza, and the overall death toll has risen by 1,400 more people over the past year, according to The Guardian. The report also cites UN figures showing that 230 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces and settlers in 2025, with settler attacks there increasing.
Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, posted a video from the march on social media. "Three years on, Israel's atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank continue, and so does the solidarity of the British people. Louder, bigger, and not going anywhere. Thank you all," he said, as quoted by The Guardian.
Police conditions and the route
The Met imposed conditions on the march, requiring participants to travel via Westminster Bridge, York Road, Waterloo Bridge and The Strand on to Whitehall, with a rally ending by 6.30pm. Speeches and music had to finish by 5.30pm, according to The Guardian.
Separate conditions applied to a demonstration outside the Met's headquarters, which had to stay within a designated area and wrap up by 2.30pm. Police said the measures were intended to reduce the risk of serious disruption.
The Palestine Coalition organised the march. Its member groups include Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War, CND, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al Aqsa and the Palestinian Forum in Britain.
Political backdrop
Miliband appeared to address the marches at Labour party conference last month in Liverpool. Without naming the protests directly, he told the audience: "I want to say to the millions of people in this country and indeed elsewhere who have been moved and outraged by the plight of the Palestinian people: we hear you, you were right," The Guardian reports.
At their peak, the marches regularly drew hundreds of thousands of people.
The previous weekend, on the third anniversary of the 7 October attacks — when Hamas militants crossed the Israeli border and launched attacks on kibbutzim, border towns, military bases and music festivals, killing at least 1,209 people — a smaller pro-Palestine student demonstration took place in central London. The Met had publicly asked organisers to hold it on a different date and said identifying them had been "frankly difficult." The event went ahead with roughly 100 attendees, and five people were arrested for breaching conditions imposed on the march.
Saturday's turnout and the arrests will be watched as a test of how the Met polices large pro-Palestinian gatherings under the new conditions, and whether the government's changed position on West Bank settlements shifts the demands of organisers going forward.
