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Crowds Gather for London Pro-Palestinian Rally as Police Brace for Clashes

Demonstrators protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza -REUTERS/Hannah McKay Acquire Licensing Rights
Demonstrators protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza -REUTERS/Hannah McKay Acquire Licensing Rights
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Crowds Gather for London Pro-Palestinian Rally as Police Brace for Clashes

Demonstrators protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza -REUTERS/Hannah McKay Acquire Licensing Rights
Demonstrators protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza -REUTERS/Hannah McKay Acquire Licensing Rights

Protesters gathered in central London on Saturday ahead of a pro-Palestinian march expected to attract hundreds of thousands of people, with police launching a major operation due to fears of clashes on the day of remembrance for war veterans.

The "National March for Palestine", due to start after 1200 GMT, is the latest in a series of rallies in the British capital to show support for the Palestinians since Israel launched an air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip following the Hamas group's Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel.

Government ministers had called for Saturday's march to be cancelled because it falls on Armistice Day, which marks the end of World War One and commemorates those killed in military action.

About a mile away from the start of the march, about 1,000 people lined the streets to watch the remembrance events at the Cenotaph war memorial. Among the crowd, some right-wing counter-protesters opposed to the pro-Palestinian march chanted messages including "We want our country back".

Television pictures showed small scuffles breaking out between the police and right-wing protesters near the Cenotaph.

Police have said almost 2,000 officers will be on duty, vowing to crack down on any disorder caused either by those involved in the march or the counter-protest. An unprecedented 24-hour police guard at the Cenotaph has been in place since Thursday.

"The policing operation this weekend is huge," Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor said on Friday, saying it would be "challenging and tense".

Citing worries over planned demonstrations at three railway stations in central London, transport police said protests at Waterloo, Victoria and Charing Cross would be banned until 2300 GMT.

Organizers from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) have said the march will steer clear of the Cenotaph memorial near the Downing Street office of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and end at the US Embassy about two miles (3 km) away.

While previous PSC marches have been generally peaceful, there have been more than 100 arrests for offences including showing support for Hamas, which is banned as a terrorist organization in Britain, or holding placards with offensive slogans.

There has been strong support and sympathy for Israel from Western governments, including Britain's, and many citizens over the Hamas attacks. But the Israeli response has also prompted anger, with weekly protests in London demanding a ceasefire.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman, the minister in charge of policing, has courted controversy by calling the protesters "hate marchers", and Sunak has come under pressure from his own lawmakers to sack her after she accused the police of double standards over how they treated "pro-Palestinian mobs".

DAC Taylor said police were hoping to prevent trouble, but clashes were likely.

"There will be times this weekend where you see pockets of confrontation, despite the conditions and everything that I've put in place to manage that," he said.

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Iran Says Could Abandon Nuclear Weapons But Has Conditions

A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)
A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)
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Iran Says Could Abandon Nuclear Weapons But Has Conditions

A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)
A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)

Iran on Saturday hinted it would be willing to negotiate on a nuclear agreement with the upcoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump, but that it has conditions.
Last Thursday, the UN atomic watchdog's 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution ordering Iran to urgently improve cooperation with the agency and requesting a “comprehensive” report aimed at pressuring Iran into fresh nuclear talks.
Ali Larijani, advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said Iran and the US are now in a new position concerning the nuclear file.
In a post on X, he said, “If the current US administration say they are only against Iran’s nuclear weapons, they must accept Iran’s conditions and provide compensation for the damages caused.”

He added, “The US should accept the necessary conditions... so that a new agreement can be reached.”
Larijani stated that Washington withdrew from the JCPOA, thus causing damage to Iran, adding that his country started increasing its production of 60% enriched uranium.
The Iran nuclear accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was reached to limit the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
The deal began unraveling in 2018, when Washington, under Trump’s first administration, unilaterally withdrew from the accord and re-imposed a sanction regime of “maximum pressure” on Tehran.
In retaliation, Iran has rapidly ramped up its nuclear activities, including by increasing its stockpiles of enriched uranium to 60% — close to the 90% threshold required to develop a nuclear bomb.
It also began gradually rolling back some of its commitments by increasing its uranium stockpiles and enriching beyond the 3.67% purity -- enough for nuclear power stations -- permitted under the deal.
Since 2021, Tehran has significantly decreased its cooperation with the IAEA by deactivating surveillance devices to monitor the nuclear program and barring UN inspectors.
Most recently, Iran escalated its confrontations with the Agency by announcing it would launch a series of “new and advanced” centrifuges. Its move came in response to a resolution adopted by the United Nations nuclear watchdog that censures Tehran for what the agency called lack of cooperation.
Centrifuges are the machines that enrich uranium transformed into gas by rotating it at very high speed, increasing the proportion of fissile isotope material (U-235).
Shortly after the IAEA passed its resolution last Thursday, Tehran spoke about the “dual role” of IAEA’s chief, Raphael Grossi.
Chairman of the Iranian Parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Ebrahim Azizi said, “The statements made by Grossi in Tehran do not match his actions in Vienna.”
And contrary to the statements of Azizi, who denied his country’s plans to build nuclear weapons, Tehran did not originally want to freeze its uranium stockpile enriched to 60%
According to the IAEA’s definition, around 42 kg of uranium enriched to 60% is the amount at which creating one atomic weapon is theoretically possible. The 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Spokesperson and deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said on Friday that IAEA inspectors were scheduled to come immediately after the meeting of the Board of Governors to evaluate Iran’s capacity, “with those capacities remaining for a month without any interruption in enrichment at 60% purity.”
Iran’s news agency, Tasnim, quoted Kamalvandi as saying that “the pressures resulting from the IAEA resolution are counterproductive, meaning that they increase our ability to enrich.”
He added: “Currently, not only have we not stopped enrichment, but we have orders to increase the speed, and we are gradually working on that."