Thousands attend pro-Palestine rallies across Australia as organisers vow to keep protesting after Gaza ceasefire | Protest

Tens of thousands of people have gathered in pro-Palestinian demonstrations across Australia, with organizers vowing to continue protests after Donald Trump brokered a ceasefire deal in Gaza that initially appeared valid.

The Palestine Action Group in Sydney said 30,000 people marched from Hyde Park to Belmore Park in the central business district after a planned rally at the Opera House was banned by the New South Wales appeal court last week.

While NSW police estimated 8,000 people attended the Sydney protest, a spokesman said there were “no major incidents”.

Rallies were also held in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth on Sunday to commemorate two years of killings in Gaza after Hamas killed nearly 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, 2023.

Separately, thousands of people were expected to attend a Jewish community commemoration ceremony in Sydney on Sunday night to mark the second anniversary of October 7. Geoffrey Majzner, brother of Australian citizen Galit Carbone, who was killed in the attacks, was expected to give a speech.

Palestine Action Group organizer Josh Lees told Guardian Australia at Sunday’s rally: “From a movement standpoint, we will absolutely continue to protest for a free Palestine… for self-determination in Gaza, for aid to be allowed in and for Palestinians to be able to rebuild Gaza.”

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But Amal Naser, one of the organisers, said the organization would be among the groups attending the Unity Against Racism rally in Belmore Park next week in response to anti-immigration rallies and the presence of neo-Nazis in Australia.

Many protesters on Sunday expressed hope that the ceasefire would lead to lasting peace. Others were skeptical of Trump’s intervention and urged pro-Palestinian supporters to continue pressuring the Australian government to impose sanctions on Israel and end trade in military goods.

Shamikh Badra, a Palestinian Australian living in Sydney, said he hoped the deal would allow him to bring his elderly mother, who still has no access to medical care in Gaza, to Australia and to find and bury her brother, sister-in-law and four children who have been missing since 2023.

“We support efforts to end genocide, but I still worry about Trump’s plan.” [was] “Impositions imposed on the Palestinians,” he said, and continued: “They did not consult the Palestinians in the beginning.”

The Sydney rally heard speakers including four Australians who were released from Israeli custody this month following the interception of the Sumud flotilla.

Surya McEwen, whose arm was left in a sling after allegedly dislocating himself in an Israeli prison, told Guardian Australia not enough information was known about the ceasefire agreement. International aid organizations, including Unrwa and Unicef, were preparing to enter Gaza.

McEwen said flotilla activists would try to deliver aid by sea “as long as there is a situation where there is a brutal and illegal blockade of Gaza.”

Abubakir Rafiq, who returned to Sydney on Friday, gave an emotional speech describing his detention with 83 other men in Israel’s Ketziot prison.

“I was released,” he said. “What about those two Palestinians I saw when I was imprisoned…what about the 10,000 Palestinian hostages held in the prison?”

NSW Greens MP Jenny Leong told the crowd: “We cannot allow a world where Trump determines the future of the Palestinian people to be the kind of world we live in.”

Naser, who made the first application to march to the Opera House, argued that the protesters could safely go to the famous venue by the harbour. NSW police deputy commissioner Peter McKenna told the appeal court last week the plan was “riddled with disaster”.

“Every time the police try to oppose our rally or take us to the supreme court, many people wake up to the need to take action and oppose it,” Naser said on Sunday.

– Additional reporting by Australian Associated Press