Police arrested a number of pro-Palestinian protesters in Amsterdam Monday, as tensions erupted round occasions within the metropolis to mark the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israel.
Riot officers carrying shields and batons deployed in pressure within the Dutch capital as individuals gathered within the Dam central sq. to mourn these killed one yr in the past.
Whereas the pro-Israeli group was listening to speeches and live shows, counter-demonstrators started to shout slogans.
Police grabbed one middle-aged girl and hauled her into an armoured van, an AFP journalist on the bottom witnessed.
Close by, police surrounded a number of dozen pro-Palestinian demonstrators with faces lined and waving flags, to maintain them separated from the Israeli gathering.
Police warned them to disperse however later introduced that they had arrested the group “for breaking the legislation on public gatherings”.
French vacationers Myriam Acef, 23, and Ines Khraroubu, 21, advised AFP: “We had been there proper in the beginning however we solely stayed a bit as a result of we shortly noticed the police had been surrounding everybody.”
“We had been pushed round a bit with shields and we had been caught for round 20-Half-hour,” Acef stated.
Prime Minister Dick Schoof and different prime Dutch political leaders had been attending commemorations in an Amsterdam synagogue to mark the October 7 assault.
Away from Amsterdam, pro-Palestinian protesters staged sit-ins at a number of stations across the nation.
The October 7 assault resulted within the deaths of 1,206 individuals, in keeping with an AFP tally primarily based on official Israeli figures.
The attackers took 251 individuals hostage into Gaza, the place 97 are nonetheless being held, together with 34 the Israeli army says are useless.
Hours later, Israel launched a army offensive that has razed swathes of Gaza and displaced practically all of its 2.4 million residents not less than as soon as amid an unrelenting humanitarian disaster.
Based on information offered by the well being ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, 41,909 Palestinians, the bulk civilians, have been killed there because the begin of the conflict. These figures have been deemed dependable by the United Nations.
