Students defy Keir Starmer's call to cancel Gaza protests on 7 October

Hundreds of students marched through central London on Tuesday to condemn the ongoing genocide in Gaza, despite calls by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to not protest on 7 October.

Tuesday marks two years since the Hamas-led attack on Israel and Israel's subsequent war on the Gaza Strip, which Palestinian health officials say has killed more than 60,000 people, and has been widely defined as a genocide.

Earlier on Tuesday, Starmer urged students not to protest on 7 October after last week's synagogue attack in Manchester, which killed three people. 

Writing in the Times, Starmer said the planned student protests were "un-British" and "lacked respect for others".

"As we remember the awful atrocities that took place two years ago on October 7, I would just encourage those considering taking part in protests to pause, to reflect and to understand the deep sense of loss that many people in our country will be experiencing today, not least given the appalling attacks we saw at Manchester last week," he wrote.

But students defied the calls and continued with the march through central London.

Starting from King's College London, hundreds of students marched past the London School of Economics towards Bloomsbury as they chanted against their university's "complicity in the genocide" and clampdown on student activism.

Many also chanted "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free", and a call to support the intifada, which means uprising in Arabic, to free Palestine, despite calls for them not to use these chants. 

'Duty'

Jason Wilde, a PhD student at University College London (UCL), described it as "his duty" to march for Palestine and against "Britain's ongoing complicity in the genocide". 

"Whether we like it or not, our country stands accused of participating in grave war crimes that many generations will remember for years to come," said Wilde, as he covered his face with a black scarf to protect his identity. 

"We need to stand up to genocide, and we must protest in London, where many of the institutions that are complicit in the genocide are present."

Responding to Starmer's comments, Wilde said it was "un-British" not to protest against Israel's war on Gaza.

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"Frankly, I’m proud to be un-British if it means that being British is to back a genocide," Wilde said.

The march went up Mallet Street, past UCL, which two years ago hosted a student encampment for Gaza.

Surrounded by livestreamers with phone setups to record the march, right-wing vloggers attempted to speak with the student protestors, who ignored or refused to engage with the vloggers going live on TikTok.

Outside UCL, protesters made speeches, before someone accosted them and chanted "Free Hamas from Gaza" and "there is no genocide - it's a lie". 

Police attempted to separate the protesters from the pro-Israel activist, who wore an Israeli flag emblazoned with an Iranian royalist flag.

But the pro-Israel marcher remained defiant and blocked the march from moving. One pro-Palestine protester shouted "Nazi" at the activist before police intervened.

The marchers then headed down towards the School of Oriental and African Studies, led by Haya Adam, a former SOAS student excluded for her activism at the university.

Fatima Musa, a master's student at King's College London, said that "ending the genocide was her justification" for protesting on Tuesday.

"This has been going for longer than two years, and being a person of colour in Britain, it's our duty to call for an end to this genocide, like many others, which have been caused by Britain's complicity," said Fatima, as she held a banner with names of children killed in Gaza.

"We are just practising our human right to protest against a genocide and if Keir Starmer doesn't like that, then he's part of the problem."