Eight arrests at latest pro-Palestinian protest in London

Thousands of activists set out from Piccadilly Circus shortly after 1.30pm on Saturday. The march passed Hyde Park and ended on Kensington Road.

The Metropolitan Police said in a post on X that six of the arrests involved marchers for racially motivated misdemeanors involving signs and gestures, criminal damage and assault.

The other two arrests were counter-demonstrators who were detained on suspicion of disturbing the peace and attacking police officers, police said.

At the demonstration, protesters held signs reading “Starmer has blood on his hands” and “Stop the war coalition.”

The march was briefly disrupted when at least two counter-protesters blocked the march outside the Park Lane Hotel near Green Park, one of whom held up a sign reading “Hamas is terrorist”.

After a violent altercation, two men were arrested by the police.

A separate counter-demonstration took place on Kensington High Street, with participants dancing to music and waving Israeli, British and American flags, but the demonstration was kept away from the much larger pro-Palestinian march by police and barricades.

The protest is the 18th organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) since the conflict began last October.

The Metropolitan Police had imposed a number of conditions on the event, including that the demonstration had to end by 5 p.m.

Another event that was supposed to take place on the planned route was cancelled, police said.

The demonstration followed a rare public statement by senior MI6 and CIA officials declaring that they would work together “diligently” on a ceasefire and hostage agreement in Gaza and would “use our intelligence channels to push vigorously for restraint and de-escalation” in the Middle East.