“One, two Gaza needs you. Three, four, stop the war,” rang out around Lincoln’s High Street on Thursday, June 3rd, as protesters rallied against Israel’s attack on a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid.
Around thirty people turned out to the demonstration, which was held by the University of Lincoln’s Islamic Society. A group gathered at the university’s Brayford campus, before marching to the Cornhill area in the city centre.
In the early hours of Monday morning, May 31st, Israel Defence Force commandos dropped on to a ship carrying humnitarian aid to the Gaza strip, attempting to breach Israel’s blockade on the area. As many as nine human rights activists were killed, though the death toll could be more.
Dave Tompkins, a protester at the Lincoln event, said in a speech: “We need to remember when talking about this that it is the Israeli government, not the Israeli people. Many of these people have joined the demonstrations across the world, to condem their government’s actions.
“We unite people, whatever religion, whatever nationality, whatever political beliefs, against the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”
Amjad Altadmri, one of the demo’s organisers and of the Islamic Society, said: “[This issue] is very important for us because we think it’s fair that people in Gaza want…things like food [and] medicine. These people from forty countries went there just to help them and give them a hand, and [now some] of them are dead.
“We need everyone to be all together to say in one voice that this blockade has to be ended because it is the initial cause of everything. We want to stop another bloodbath in the Middle East and all over the world.
“I want to [send] a message to local people that they have to read more about what actually happened.
“We don’t want another war and we don’t want extremism from any side. We need to fight for human [rights] for each side and, of course, security for everyone.”