BSS
  28 May 2024, 12:13

10,000 demonstrate in Paris against Israeli Gaza offensive

PARIS, May 28, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - 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 centre 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 FranØois Rippe of the Association France-Palestine Solidarity group that organised 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.