Israel and Hamas at war | Mobilization against anti-Semitism in Germany

(Dessau) Thousands of people demonstrated in Berlin on Sunday in solidarity with Israel and against anti-Semitism following the bloody attacks by Hamas, while the German Chancellor promised to fight against the resurgence of anti-Jewish acts in the country.

According to a spokeswoman for the Berlin police, the demonstration brought together “around 10,000 people”, while the organizers spoke of “at least 25,000” participants near the Brandenburg Gate.

Among the crowd, Carsten Remmers, 41, came with his four-year-old daughter.

It is at this moment “extremely important to say that we are alongside Israel”, this manager of the music sector told AFP, “especially us as Germans who have a special responsibility”.

Susanne Liebegott, a 60-year-old teacher, says she mainly came “to reject anti-Semitism […] which is gaining ground, including in Germany” and “worries me a lot”.

At the start of the demonstration, the German head of state considered it “unbearable that Jews could live in fear again today, especially in our country”, given Nazism and the Holocaust.

“Every attack on Jews is a shame for Germany,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the crowd.

Germany has seen a wave of anti-Jewish incidents since attacks by Hamas and Israel’s retaliatory bombing campaign.

Houses inhabited by Jews have been marked with the Star of David in Berlin and attackers threw two Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in the capital last week.

According to the Federal Association of Research and Information Centers on Anti-Semitism (RIAS), between October 7 and 15 some 202 anti-Semitic “incidents” were recorded, compared to only 59 during the same week in 2022.

” Zero tolerance “

“There must be zero tolerance for anti-Semitism in Germany,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday at the inauguration of a synagogue in Dessau, eastern Germany.

Germany will “defend and protect” Jewish lives, he said, expressing shock at the spread of anti-Semitism “all over the world and, shamefully, also here in Germany.”

The opening of the Dessau synagogue comes 85 years after the destruction of a synagogue in the city during the anti-Jewish pogrom better known as “Kristallnacht” on November 9, 1938, widely considered the start of the Third Reich’s campaign to eliminate the Jews.

The new building was named Weill Synagogue in honor of the German-American composer Kurt Weill, whose father was a cantor in the Jewish community of Dessau.

Dessau is located 50 kilometers from Halle, where a gunman killed two people after failing to storm a synagogue during the Yom Kippur religious holiday in October 2019.

Germany has the third largest Jewish community in Europe, according to the Interior Ministry. The government estimates it at around 200,000 people, including around 100,000 practitioners. The country has around a hundred synagogues still active.

At the same time, numerous pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been held over the past 15 days, sometimes despite bans from the authorities, giving rise to hundreds of arrests.

More than 100 police officers were injured in clashes, by throwing stones, bottles or pyrotechnic products.

The start of a gathering was dispersed by police on Sunday in Berlin, a city with the largest Palestinian diaspora in Europe, with a number estimated at between 35,000 and 45,000 people.

Israeli support in London

At a protest attended by thousands in London’s Trafalgar Square, participants held up posters bearing images of hostages and the missing. They chanted “take them home,” falling silent as the hostages’ names were read.

Speakers from the UK’s ruling Conservative Party and the Labor Party addressed the crowd. Communities Secretary Michael Gove said the Hamas attack was an act of “unprecedented evil and barbarity.” »

“We must be united against this. We must defend life. We must bring the hostages home,” he said.

Demonstration in Geneva to demand the release of Hamas hostages

“Release ours, release ours…!” » There were a few hundred of them on Sunday demanding the release of more than 200 Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, on the United Nations Square in Geneva, in front of the European headquarters of the UN.

This demonstration was organized by “The Voice for Freedom Coalition”, bringing together several hundred committees of Christian Zionist organizations.

This gave a resolutely religious tone to this gathering, where slogans gave way to prayers.

The demonstration is the culmination of the trip to Geneva of several families of hostages who came this week to meet the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights of Man, Volker Türk.

Many demonstrators waved Israeli flags or wore them around their shoulders and carried signs with photos of hostages.

More than 1,400 people have been killed on Israeli territory by Hamas men since October 7, the majority of civilians mowed down by bullets, burned alive or dead from mutilations on the first day of the attack by fighters of the Palestinian Islamist movement carried out in from Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

Since the Hamas attack on October 7, demonstrations have followed one another in Switzerland, in support of Israel and, more numerous, in support of the Palestinian people.

Zurich was the scene of a large demonstration in support of Israel organized by the city’s Jewish community, three days after the attacks on Israel, bringing together several hundred people.

On Thursday, it was Lausanne which saw the largest demonstration demanding an end to Israeli bombings on the Gaza Strip, bringing together 4,500 to 5,000 people. Roughly the same number gathered in Geneva on Saturday.

To avoid any excess, Zurich has banned any gathering relating to events in the Middle East for several days, while Basel, in the northwest of the country, has decided to ban all gatherings this weekend.

With Associated Press