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Palestinian flags at Berlin's Oranienplatz
Photo: Annette Riedl / dpa
Numerous demonstrators once again called for solidarity with Palestine in the Middle East conflict on Saturday.
It remained peaceful until the early evening.
In Berlin, for example, many demonstrators carried posters with the words "Free Palestine".
According to estimates by a dpa reporter, hundreds of people took part.
In Leipzig, the police spoke of around 200 participants.
On posters they called for "Freedom for Palestine", "Stop the Israeli terror" and "Jerusalem is and remains the capital of Palestine".
According to the police, around 950 demonstrators took part in Frankfurt am Main under the motto "Immediate end to Israeli annexation and aggression".
The participants also kept the pandemic-related minimum distances, the police said.
At the same time, there were also small solidarity rallies for the Israeli population.
In Giessen, for example, around 300 people gathered at a rally entitled "Pro Israel", according to the police.
According to observers, more than 100 people took part in a pro-Israel rally in Cologne.
A ceasefire in the Gaza conflict came into force on Friday. Israel and the ruling Hamas in the Gaza Strip had reached an agreement through Egypt after an eleven-day exchange of blows. There had been anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli demonstrations in several German cities in the past few days. Thousands of people took to the streets a week ago, mainly to show their solidarity with the Palestinians. There were also incidents and riots.
According to the anti-Semitism officer of the Berlin police, Wolfram Pemp, the hatred of Jews has long been massively underestimated. "Not just Muslim anti-Semitism, but anti-Semitism as a whole, has not been perceived as it should have been perceived for far too long," he told the Tagesspiegel. “Some assumed the subject was settled for us. But it just didn't end. ”According to Pemp, this applies not only to the context of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, but also to protests by the so-called Corona movement.
Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) warned in her weekly video message: "Anyone who takes hatred of Jews onto our streets, who expresses hatred of the people, is outside of our Basic Law."
She called for tangible consequences for the perpetrators.
wal / dpa
