Students defy Keir Starmer’s call to cancel Gaza protests on 7 October
Pro-Palestine students take part in an inter-university march for Gaza in London on 7 October 2025, the second anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks on Israel and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza
Areeb Ullah reports in Middle East Eye on 7 October 2025:
Hundreds of students marched through central London on Tuesday [7 October] to condemn the ongoing genocide in Gaza, despite calls by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to not protest on 7 October.
Tuesday marks two years since the Hamas-led attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent war on the Gaza Strip, which Palestinian health officials say has killed more than 60,000 people, and has been widely defined as a genocide.
Earlier on Tuesday, Starmer urged students not to protest on 7 October after last week’s synagogue attack in Manchester, which killed three people. Writing in the Times, Starmer said the planned student protests were “un-British” and “lacked respect for others”.
“As we remember the awful atrocities that took place two years ago on October 7, I would just encourage those considering taking part in protests to pause, to reflect and to understand the deep sense of loss that many people in our country will be experiencing today, not least given the appalling attacks we saw at Manchester last week,” he wrote.
But students defied the calls and continued with the march through central London.
Starting from King’s College London, hundreds of students marched past the London School of Economics towards Bloomsbury as they chanted against their university’s “complicity in the genocide” and clampdown on student activism.
Many also chanted “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free”, and a call to support the intifada, which means uprising in Arabic, to free Palestine, despite calls for them not to use these chants.
‘Duty’