Large crowd in attendance of Derry march for Palestine

Pro-Palestinian protesters held a demonstration through Derry on Saturday.

Organised by the Derry branch of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), the protestors marched from the train station in the Waterside across the Craigavon Bridge to the Guildhall on January 18.

The demonstrations follow the Israeli government's approval of a new Gaza ceasefire and a hostage release deal with Hamas, which is due to come into effect on Sunday.

However, Israeli airstrikes upon Gaza continue, with a reported 116 Palestinians killed since the ceasefire was announced on Wednesday, according to the civil defence agency.

Chairperson of the Derry IPSC, Catherine Hutton, welcomed the news of the ceasefire but will continue to campaign to ‘bring to an end the Israeli occupation’.

IN PICTURES: Derry campaigners march in solidarity with Palestine

She said: “It is positive for the people of Gaza, but it is just the start, as we have been here before, and we know that Israel is not committed to it. We know they are duplicitous, and they will do everything in their power to try and get out of the commitments that they have been made to sign up to.

“Some may be thinking that is it now, and there will be no more protests, but we feel it is more important now than ever to be out on the street and keep the momentum going because not only is it the war crimes and the genocide that has to be answered for by the Israelis.

“The occupation needs to be brought to an end, and that is not going to happen without pressure from the ground up because many governments have not had any urge to stop the genocide, and only for people marching week in and week out that there has been any sort of change at all, so we would like to emphasis that now is the time for us to focus on the long-term strategy to ending the apartheid regime and the ethnic cleansing across Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.”

Colum Eastwood, the MP for Foyle, was in attendance at the demonstration.

The former SDLP leader was proud of the people of Derry for their ‘extraordinary solidarity’ with the Palestinian people.

He said: “I think there has been extraordinary solidarity from the people of Derry and the people of Ireland generally with the Palestinian people, those in Gaza, who have been systematically murdered by the Israeli regime, their homes destroyed, tens of thousands of people dead, many thousands of whom are children, and that can only be described as one thing, and that is a genocide, and people have to be held to account for that.

“While we see the American administration walking out the door and handing the Israeli government another $8 billion worth of weapons, it is tragic and despicable, and I think those people who were on the wrong side of this will not be forgotten by history.

“I think a lot of people here and across the world have felt helpless and hopeless during all of it, but they have been able to, I think, unite as part of a movement across the planet against one of the most obvious and brutal genocides that has been happening on our TV screens for well over a year, I think it is important that people stand up, I know it can feel hopeless at times but this isn’t over.

“I have no trust whatsoever in the Israeli government, and remember this has been going on for decades, and there will be no real peace in Palestine until there is proper justice for the Palestinian people and they get their own state and the end of apartheid in the Israeli state. I just think that battle will continue; we have been marching for many years, long before last year, and it looks to me that we are going to have to keep doing that.”

The current Israel-Gaza conflict started on 7 October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 people taken to Gaza as hostages.

This attack triggered a significant Israeli offensive on Gaza, during which more than 46,800 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Among these Palestinian deaths have been 149 journalists, according to the latest statistics from the International Federation of Journalists, representing 600,000 media professionals.

Darach MacDonald, a journalist representing the National Union of Journalists, spoke at the demonstration about the Israeli Defense Force’s ‘ targeting of journalists’.

He said: “The IDF has been targeting journalists since before the current genocide in Gaza. In May 2022, only six months before the onslaught began, Shireen Abu Akleh, celebrated as the daughter of Palestine for her incisive journalism for Al Jazeera, was shot dead in an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank. Every investigation since has disclaimed Israeli claims that she was shot by Palestinian militants and a later revised narrative that she was shot accidentally. Shireen Abu Akleh was murdered in a policy of annihilation against journalists who threaten the Israeli state and its western allies.

“The IDF engages in a deliberate and calculated war against journalism, a war against the truth.”

The ceasefire in Gaza is set to come into effect on Sunday, January 19, at 6:30 am.

Jews for Ireland supported this motion; however, spokesperson Becca Barr believed that it ‘does not bring peace because there is no peace without justice’,

She said: “A ceasefire of a relentless genocidal annihilation is but the bare minimum; hundreds of Palestinians have been murdered just days following the announcement of the ceasefire, so we welcome the joy on the faces of the Palestinians, the joy to be alive and to have made it through, but the pain, the grief, the sorrow, the trauma, the rage, and the exhaustion—this ceasefire deal was the same one that was on the table in May, and that fills me with rage.

15,000 fewer Palestinians would be dead if it had been agreed in May.

“This ceasefire does not bring peace because there is no peace without justice.

“As long as the occupation continues, the genocide is not over.

“We need to continue to be here, to march, protest, and stand until the actual liberation of Palestine.”