UK Edition
It was a day of mayhem, bitterness and open hate that began well away from what had been the main event.
As hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestine marchers made their way to the start of a march calling for an end to Israel’s bombing of Gaza, some carrying openly anti-Semitic banners, far-Right protesters clashed with police two miles away in central London.
Bottles and a metal barrier were thrown and fighting broke out as officers tried to prevent around 1,000 far-Right marchers from reaching the Cenotaph in Whitehall for the 11am silence.
In a self-declared bid to “protect Armistice Day”, dozens of far-Right protesters broke through a line of officers near Scotland Yard. Police could be seen hitting out at those pushing through with batons.
Police reinforcements raced to contain the crowds as they jostled to be allowed to the memorial to Britain’s war dead a few hundred metres away. In Parliament Square, a counter-protester grabbed an officer’s riot helmet and brandished it high in triumph as the clashes continued.
At 11am, the two-minute silence was held to mark Armistice Day and a wreath-laying ceremony took place without disruption. As it drew to a close, the crowds cheered members of the Armed Forces.
But police said the event had been marred by the confrontations. Scotland Yard said: “While the two-minute silence was marked respectfully and without incident on Whitehall, officers have faced aggression from counter-protesters who are in the area in significant numbers.
“[Officers] were met with violence and abuse by counter-protesters who threw bottles and other missiles at them.”
James Fillery, a former Army sergeant who had paid his respects at the Cenotaph, condemned the far-Right activists.
“I am glad that they didn’t disrupt the silence. That would have been so disrespectful. I think many of them thought this was some kind of football match with all their chants,” he said.
“I just thought they were idiots, and I doubt they would have had the guts to serve their country.”
Earlier, the Far-right leader Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, had swaggered through Trafalgar Square towards Whitehall in a bid to lead his supporters to the Cenotaph. Chants of “England til I die” and “You’re not English any more” were heard as they charged police lines.
Yaxley-Lennon later appeared to leave in a taxi before the clashes began, while another group marched to Chinatown, where they confronted police and shouted yet more abuse, with a man arrested on suspicion of possessing a knife.
Shortly afterwards, there was a brief confrontation between small groups of the far-Right and pro-Palestinian protesters in Trafalgar Square.
A number of men trampled over the names of dead Palestinian children, which had been placed on the steps to the National Gallery, before the pro-Palestinian activists left the area.
Police later detained a large group of far-Right counter-protesters near Westminster Bridge, corralling them along a section of Bridge Road. A man was arrested for assaulting a police officer, and a second detained for possession of a controlled substance.
Witnesses on the scene reported that first one then several protesters pushed their way through the police line, shouting “w------” and “Rule Britannia”. Police horses were drafted in to blockade the road.
Matt Twists, the Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner, said the counter-protesters had arrived “intent on confrontation and intent on violence” and that a number of groups had split off and deliberately sought “confrontation with the main Palestinian march”.
The clashes near the Cenotaph came as protesters calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza prepared to march from Marble Arch to a site close to the US embassy in Battersea.
The protest was the biggest so far, with Sotland Yard putting numbers at more than 300,000 and the organisers claiming more than 800,000.
Gathering from mid-morning the marchers, including families with children, carried Palestinian flags or placards emblazoned with slogans such as “Free Palestine”, “End Israeli apartheid” and “Baby killer Biden stop arming Israel”.
There were chants and placards proclaiming “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free” – a slogan widely interpreted as calling for the destruction of the state of Israel.
Others made anti-Semitic comparisons between the Israeli government and the Nazis, with one man holding aloft a hand-drawn placard reading: “Welcome to Gaza, twinned with Auschwitz” while a young woman displayed a placard with the sloga, stained in red ink: “Netanyahu, Hitler would be proud.”
Several of the stickers and placards held by protesters appeared to have been produced by the Friends of al-Aqsa group, founded and chaired by Ismael Patel, a Leicester-based optician who has repeatedly voiced his support for Hamas.
Friends of al-Aqsa were among the main organisers of the march, along with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War and CND. Some in the crowd were handed a petition calling for Hamas to be removed from the list of proscribed terror groups.
As the protesters passed the Bomber Command memorial, near Marble Arch, they chanted “peace right now”, and a Palestinian flag was wrapped around a First World War memorial near Wellington Arch commemorating those in the Machine Gun Corps.
Osman, a 46-year-old health and safety specialist from London, said there was only “a one-state solution” to the conflict.
“The whole of Palestine needs to be liberated and to be free, but that doesn’t mean murder and expulsion of all Jewish people,” he said, adding of the Hamas massacre of Israelis: “Oct 7 is an excuse, an absolute excuse. This whole thing started in 1948. I’m not justifying it, but no revolution around the world has ever been bloodless.”
At one stage, as the pro-Palestine march made its way slowly towards Victoria, stewards linked arms to ensure breakaway far-Right groups were not able to clash with the protesters.
At various stages along the route, police units moved rapidly to try and stop counter-protesters from reaching the main body of marchers.
By early afternoon, Scotland Yard said as many as 82 counter protesters had been arrested in Tachbrook Street, Pimlico, with another 10 held elsewhere.
As the 2.5 mile-long pro-Palestine march – the biggest so far – reached Vauxhall Bridge on its way to a site close to the US embassy in Nine Elms to listen to speeches, a firework was set off along with smoke flares, heralding more cries of “Free, free Palestine!”
At Vauxhall Bridge, Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, climbed on top of a fire engine and told the crowd that attempts to ban the march had been futile.
“It seems that there’s one million of us here today in London showing our solidarity with the people of Palestine, so Suella Braverman and Rishi Sunak’s attempt to stop this has been shamed for what it is,” he said.
Two women from the pro-Palestine march were at one stage seen being led away by police and a man also arrested. Scotland Yard said a woman was arrested on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker, a man was arrested for obstructing officers when a search was taking place and a third woman was detained but not arrested.
As evening set in and pro-Palestine marchers dispersed ,some set off fireworks in the roads leading to Victoria station, while in Trafalgar Square police moved on any far-Right groups attempting to congregate. Officers ordered pubs in Whitehall to shut to prevent the counter-demonstrators from congregating.
Later in the evening, protesters from a pro-Palestine march were kettled outside the Cleveland Clinic Hospital on Grosvenor Place as police officers donned riot helmets. Demonstrators who pleaded with officers to let them leave were told: “Patience is a virtue.”
Within the kettled area, firework explosions could be heard. Officers at the scene told The Telegraph the fireworks had been set off “at the police”. An announcement said a “second police officer” had been “assaulted” with a firework. Pro-Palestinian protesters were held under section 60 relating to possession of fireworks.