Swedish activist Greta Thunberg attended a local weather change and pro-Palestinian rally in Milan on Friday, days after her criticism of Israel sparked a row over protests in Germany.
Greater than 1,000 folks, a lot of them youngsters, joined a peaceable march within the northern Italian metropolis organised by Fridays For Future, the local weather change motion Thunberg helped discovered.
Carrying a keffiyeh, a standard scarf symbolising the Palestinian battle towards Israel, Thunberg walked close to the entrance of the procession as different protesters waved flags, held banners and danced to music.
“Palestinians have been residing beneath suffocating oppression for many years by an apartheid regime, and over the past 12 months with Israel’s reside broadcasted genocide, the world has as soon as once more deserted Palestine,” the 21-year-old mentioned in a speech.
The Gaza battle started on October 7 final 12 months, when Hamas militants stormed throughout the border and carried out the worst assault on Israel in its historical past.
The militants took 251 folks hostage in an assault that resulted within the deaths of 1,206 folks, most of them civilians, in response to an AFP tally based mostly on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory navy offensive in Gaza has killed greater than 42,000 folks, most of them civilians, in response to figures supplied by the Hamas-run territory’s well being ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged the figures to be dependable.
Thunberg drew a hyperlink between world warming and the weapons business.
“The struggle for local weather justice is a struggle towards the fossil gasoline business, simply as a lot as it’s a struggle towards the weapon industries, militarisation and the over-extraction of pure sources,” she mentioned.
German police on Tuesday closed a pro-Palestinian protest camp that had invited Thunberg after a rally she attended in Berlin Monday — the anniversary of the Hamas assault — resulted in clashes with police.
She accused Germany of “silencing and threatening activists”.
The Milan march was a part of a “nationwide strike for the local weather”, a collection of protests organised by Fridays For Future throughout Italy.
“Demonstrating is the one weapon we now have towards the injustice that we endure,” mentioned protester Sofia Parisi, 17.
