French leftist Mélenchon at Geneva pro-Palestine rally
Published: Saturday, Feb 3rd 2024, 20:30
Updated At: Saturday, Feb 3rd 2024, 20:30
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1500 to 2000 people took part in a demonstration in support of the Palestinian people in Geneva on Saturday afternoon. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI), traveled from France.
Mélenchon was accompanied by several party members whose sections in neighbouring France had initiated the meeting together with various other organizations, trade unions and collectives in support of Palestine.
The demonstrators marched from the Palais Wilson to the Place des Nations in front of the United Nations headquarters, where they waved flags and chanted slogans in support of Palestine. The demonstration - which according to the police was attended by 1,400 people, according to estimates by the Keystone-SDA news agency 2,000 - passed off without incident.
The rally featured numerous speeches by Swiss and French speakers calling for "an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza", "an end to the apartheid regime", "an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people" and "an end to settlement construction in the West Bank".
Mélenchon was the last to speak. He thanked the United Nations and its Secretary-General António Guterres in particular for their efforts to "end the massacre". "Fortunately" there is the United Nations, "otherwise there would only be barbarism", said Mélenchon. He called on "the powerful who govern us" to respect international law and end "the age of weapons".
On 7 October, the Palestinian organization Hamas invaded Israel from the Gaza Strip and massacred, raped, killed and abducted around 1,200 Jewish civilians at dawn. Since then, the Israeli army has been fighting in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to free Israeli hostages and destroy Hamas. According to the army, over 25,000 civilians, most of them Palestinians, have died in the process.
©Keystone/SDA
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