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Defiant pro-Palestine supporters vow to keep rallying

Marchers in Melbourne

Source: Solidarity

Thousands of people have joined pro-Palestine rallies across Australia on the eve of the first anniversary of a terrorist attack in Israel that sparked chaos in the Middle East.

Large crowds gathered at Sydney’s Hyde Park shortly after noon on Sunday before heading towards St James Road, while similar scenes unfolded in Melbourne.

Sydney rally organiser, Amal Naser said the CBD march was the beginning of action to mark one year since the October 7 attacks and Israel’s subsequent violence in Gaza.

“It is not us who supports terror, it is our government,” Naser told the crowd.

“Every time we thought it couldn’t get worse, Israel showed us it could get worse – 12 months in, there is no sign Israel will slow down.

“We stand here in, I think one of the biggest rallies we have ever seen.”

One man was arrested in Sydney after holding up an Israeli flag whose Star of David had been replaced with a Nazi swastika.

NSW Police said a 56-year-old man had been charged with knowingly displaying a Nazi symbol without reasonable excuse. He will appear in court later in October.

After the protest was over, a 28-year-old man detained on Elizabeth Street for an alleged breach of the peace. He was spoken to by police and released.

Demonstrators had been warned not to display the flag, symbols or portraits of Hezbollah, which is a designated terrorist group in Australia, or “play out” the conflict in the Middle East through racial slurs or “threats to public safety”.

Some individuals were carrying flags with green and yellow, which are the colours of Hezbollah’s official ensign.

One man holding a green and yellow flag – which appeared to show a masked man holding a weapon, echoing the design of the Hezbollah flag – was quizzed by police.

NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna said about 10,000 people attended the rally.

“The NSW Police worked closely with our partner agencies and protest organisers to execute a significant and robust police operation across the Sydney CBD, which evidently had a successful outcome,” he said.

Marchers in Sydney

Source: X/Yasmina Rifai

Crowd defies pleas not to march

In Melbourne, four people were arrested for public order-related matters as more than 7000 attended the city’s pro-Palestine event, police said.

AS thousands gathered outside the State Library in the CBD, a group of men dressed in black could be seen waving green and yellow flags.

Last weekend, protesters in Sydney and Melbourne drew condemnation for waving the flag of Hezbollah at a similar march.

One protester said some in the group had family links to Hezbollah, as it has seats in Lebanon’s parliament.

He said the colours symbolised resistance and they would have waved the flags even if the use of Hezbollah flags had not been criticised during the week.

Men in the group were also seen waving a flag with an image of Iran’s current and former leaders.

Australian Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni told the Melbourne crowd Israel should be condemned for its offensive in Gaza in the wake of October 7.

“Will anyone speak of the dead children, dead women and dead men?” Mashni said.

“It’s shameful that we’re being asked to be respectful when we’ve had 365 October 7s in this period.”

The crowd then marched down Swanston Street towards Flinders Street Station, chanting phrases including “all Zionists are terrorists” while some waved solid yellow or green flags.

Victoria Police had a visible presence and quickly led a man away when a scuffle broke out.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said the protests were “deeply regrettable”.

“The anniversary of October 7 needs to be about October 7 and what happened on that day,” he told ABC’s Insiders program.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said it was “deeply inappropriate” that protests were being held the day before the anniversary.

Similar rallies in Perth and Adelaide drew hundreds of people in support of Gaza.

More than 1200 people were killed during the October 7 attack and 250 people were taken hostage by Hamas, according to the Israeli government.

In response, Israel unleashed a bombing campaign and ground invasion of Gaza, killing almost 42,000 people, displacing 1.9 million and leaving another 500,000 with catastrophic levels of food insecurity, local health ministry sources report.

-with AAP

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