 "Delhi: JNU students protest Israeli strikes on Gaza")
Students in New Delhi took to the streets today to protest the ongoing Israeli air strikes on Gaza. Students gathered outside the Israeli embassy, holding banners and shouting slogans demanding an end to the air raids. Additional Commissioner of Police BS Tyagi told NDTV , “There were around 70-80 protesters mostly students from JNU. They reached the Israeli embassy at around 2 PM, staged a demonstration and dispersed on their own.” The students chanted “slogans like ‘free Palestine’, etc Tyagi added. However Kavita Krishnan, Secretary, AIPWA and Polit Bureau member CPI(ML), who was also present at the protest said the police mishandled her and the JNU student’s union president Akbar. She tweeted out the following:She also posted, “Palestine isn’t free. But how come we in India aren’t free to protest peacefully on Delhi streets, speak to media without police violence?”
The recent air strikes in Gaza have drawn criticism from world leaders and organisations across the globe who have repeatedly urged both sides to exercise restraint. As the strikes entered the 7th day, 172 Palestinians had been killed while 1,230 have been wounded. The UN refugee agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, said some 17,000 Palestinians had headed to special shelters set up in 20 United Nations schools in Gaza. [caption id=“attachment_1610049” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]
Smoke billows after an Israeli air strike in areas of southern Israeli border with the Gaza Strip. AFP image[/caption] In similar such protests, thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators turned out on the streets of London and Paris on Friday. Several thousand people crowded the streets outside the Israeli Embassy in west London, waving placards that read “Gaza: End the Siege” and “Freedom for Palestine.” The crowds blocked an entire road, and several protesters managed to climb on top of a double-decker bus stuck in traffic, but police said the protest was largely peaceful. A smaller protest took place in Paris Friday, where about 100 people demonstrated near the French Foreign Ministry. Overnight, Israeli warplanes struck more than 40 sites in the Gaza Strip, hitting three training facilities used by Hamas’s armed wing, and killing two people, medics said. With inputs from Agencies