Pro-Palestine protesters demonstrate outside home of Israeli ambassador to the UK as Gaza crisis intensifies
16 December 2023, 16:19
Pro-Palestine protesters gathered outside the house of the Israeli ambassador to the UK to call for an end to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
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Around 100 protesters gathered in North London, Camden to call for a ceasefire, while vocalising the controversial chant: "From the river to the sea".
Organisers Stop the War Coalition listed 57 separate pro-Palestinian events across the UK on Saturday, including assemblies and candlelit vigils.
People gathered outside Tzipi Hotovely’s Camden house and chanted "de-decolonise" and "ceasefire now", with passing cars honking their horns in support.
At the protest, one man told the crowd: "It's clear what these hostages were doing that rendered them a threat from the IDF, presumably something like being men who were unarmed in north Gaza, maybe running - that's all it takes to be murdered by the IDF."
Samer Talalka, 22, Yotam Haim, 28, and Alon Shamriz, 26, were killed after being 'mistakenly identified' as terrorists when they approached Israeli soldiers "shirtless and waving a white flag".
An IDF official said on Saturday that "the hostages were fired upon against Israel's rules of engagement", citing an initial investigation into the deaths. Protests erupted in Tel Aviv on Friday night after news emerged of the shootings.
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy told LBC's Sangita Myska on Saturday that the men's deaths were "an unspeakable and unbearable tragedy".
"The whole of Israeli society is in a lot of shock and pain today," he said. "I can say last night at Shabbat dinner when the news came through no one could speak for five minutes because everyone was stunned into silence."
Read more: Protests erupt after IDF kill three Israeli hostages 'mistakenly identified as threat' in Gaza
A spokesperson for the IDF said that the deaths were "tragic" and that lessons had been learned.
He added: "I'll say very, very clear. This was against our rules of engagement. I repeat, it was against our rules of engagement.
At the demonstration, a man with a megaphone said: "Many of you have seen the ambassador of Israel and concluded she is not a very nice person
"So she may not be a very nice person but what we object to is that she is calling for a genocide."
It was met with chants of "shame on you".
Andrew Marr quizzes Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely
Tzipi Hotovely, who used to be Israel's deputy foreign minister before moving into an ambassador role, told LBC: "Palestinians never wanted to have a state next to Israel".
She added that the Palestinians have been saying "loud and clear" that Palestine should be "free from the river to the sea", which he previously told LBC was a call for ethnic cleansing.
Ms Hotovely's comments come after she previously told LBC's Andrew Marr that a two-state solution was not possible "at present" due to the Palestinian authority's refusal to condemn the October 7 attacks.
