Pro-Palestinian March in Luxembourg City Draws 2,000 Demanding Ceasefire

About 2,000 people took part in a demonstration in Luxembourg City on Saturday 28 October 2023 aimed at showing solidarity with the people of Palestine.

Organised by Shoura, an organisation representing the Muslim community in the Grand Duchy, this event on Saturday afternoon took the form of a march from the Philharmonie in Luxembourg-Kirchberg to Place de Clairefontaine in Luxembourg-Ville.

Similar pro-Palestinian rallies have been taking place across Europe in recent weeks amid escalating conflict in the Middle East. For context, Hamas, the Islamist militant group governing the Gaza Strip of the Palestinian territories, launched a surprise attack on Israel on Saturday 7 October 2023, killing some 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostages. In response, Israel carried out a series of airstrikes before launching a ground assault into Gaza, in its attempts to wipe out Hamas. Israel also imposed a “total” siege of Gaza following the Hamas attacks. More than 8,000 Palestinians are estimated to have been killed since 7 October. Whilst the international community has widely condemned Hamas’ terrorist attacks, many have also called for a ceasefire between the two sides - calls which Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far rejected. This escalation fits within the wider context of decades of conflict in the region.

In Luxembourg on Saturday, some 2,000 people gathered to show their support for Palestinians and to demand an immediate ceasefire. Participants chanted and held up signs with slogans such as “Freedom for Gaza” and “Stop the killing”. There were several speeches, including from Shoura President Jasmin Jahić, who called for an end to the conflict and emphasised the need to protect innocent lives, as well as the religious leader of Muslims in Luxembourg, Hilmija Redžić, who spoke about the sanctity of human life and the significance of freedom (including the freedom to protest).

As Jasmin Jahić told Chronicle.lu, the main reason for this demonstration was “to protest against the massacre by Israeli forces in Gaza and to raise awareness about the ongoing conflict.”

Claude Grégoire of the Comité pour une Paix Juste au Proche-Orient asbl (CPJPO; Committee for Fair Peace in the Middle East), also spoke at the demonstration. Speaking to Chronicle.lu about the CPJPO’s decision to take part in this march, he said: “No human being should accept what the Israeli army is doing to an entire population. The CPJPO condemns [this] and condemns as well the complicity of the EU in the war crimes which are being committed. They give the green light to the occupying power. Especially several EU nations as well as Mrs Ursula von der Leyen. Even though she is not elected and is not entitled to take such unilateral position.”

In his speech on Saturday, Claude Grégoire, speaking on behalf of the CPJPO, expressed the heartbreak felt amid the ongoing conflict and criticised Israel’s recent decision to “cut off Gaza not only from food, water, electricity, fuel and medicine, but now also the Internet and telephone. Gaza is without communication, without a voice.” He thanked the organisers and all those present for their support in Luxembourg, emphasising that it was a matter of “defending democracy” and “defending international law”.

“Faced with the terrible bombings, the million displaced people, the death of more than 3,000 children, the tens of thousands of people seeking refuge in hospitals that were themselves targeted, and the victims still alive under the rubble cannot save, a broad mobilisation of civil society is necessary,” he continued. “We demand, together with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Pope, many nations and countless voices around the world, an immediate ceasefire.”

The CPJPO confirmed that it is planning to organise future demonstrations (pending authorisation), with further details set to follow.

For its part, as Jasmin Jahić later explained, Shoura hopes “we will not have a reason to organise a similar gathering” in future. “However, if the situation in Gaza does not change, we will have to think about similar or the same ways to draw attention to the situation in Gaza and put pressure on political actors to do something.”