Videos Show Massive Pro-Palestinian Protests in D.C., London, and Paris

Videos have begun to circulate on social media showing massive pro-Palestinian protests taking place in major cities all over the world on Saturday, with demonstrators calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

On October 7, Hamas led the deadliest Palestinian militant attack on Israel in history, with Israel subsequently launching its heaviest-ever airstrikes on Gaza in response. As of Saturday, over 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, the Associated Press reported, while more than 9,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in the ensuing strikes from Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country is “at war” and has cut off food, fuel, electricity, and medicine supplies into Gaza. Israel has called up 360,000 army reservists as it prepares for a likely ground offensive into the territory, which has an estimated population of around 2.3 million.

The casualties incurred by Palestinian civilians and their general treatment by the Israeli government and military have generated outpourings of sympathy from many on the world stage. It has also generated heated debate, with some pro-Palestinian voices accusing pro-Israeli voices of overlooking the treatment of Gaza residents, and some on the pro-Israeli side, in turn, accusing the pro-Palestinian side of condoning the actions of Hamas and making statements that have verged into antisemitism.

On Saturday, numerous pro-Palestinian protests were held in several major capital cities worldwide, including London, Paris, and Washington, D.C. As the protests got underway, videos began to circulate on X, the platform previously known as Twitter, showing their breadth.

News outlet Novara Media shared a glimpse of a protest in London, led by the Free Palestine Coalition, reporting that the crowd was big enough to block traffic at Oxford Circus. In the video, protestors can be seen holding numerous Palestinian flags, with smoke in the colors of the flag also wafting through the scene.

In Paris, photographer Arnaud Vilette shared a video showing the sweep of the sizeable crowd calling for the ceasefire, estimating that the massive gathering had drawn “probably more than 10,000 people.”

The protest in Washington, D.C., according to a report from USA Today, drew tens of thousands of demonstrators to the nation’s capital, gathering in Freedom Plaza, only a short distance away from the White House.

“The main goal of everyone right now is a cease-fire,” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told the outlet. “You can’t do anything without a cease-fire − you can’t do humanitarian aid, you can’t treat the wounded, you can’t even remove bodies until there’s a cease-fire. Nothing should get in the way of a humanitarian cease-fire.”

Last month, a Data for Progress poll, a progressive think tank and polling firm, surveyed 1,329 likely voters nationally about whether or not the United States should call for a ceasefire.

The poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, revealed that 66 percent of voters “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree” that “the U.S. should call for a ceasefire and a de-escalation of violence in Gaza. The U.S. should leverage its close diplomatic relationship with Israel to prevent further violence and civilian deaths.”

According to the poll, 56 percent of Republicans, 80 percent of Democrats, and 57 percent of independents back the call for a ceasefire.

Newsweek reached out to the White House via email for comment.