Pro-Palestine protest and exhibition held in Limassol (Update)

By Tom Cleaver and Rony Junior El Daccache

Another pro-Palestine protest took place on Sunday, this time in Limassol.

The protest took place on the Molos seafront promenade, with attention focused on the plight of the children in Gaza.

Activists laid down posters bearing the identities of Palestinian children killed in Gaza since October 7, while also encouraging people to write or paint messages of support on tapestries, and exhibiting photographs of the destruction in Gaza.

At the end of the exhibition, they embarked on a silent march up the Molos.

The organisers spoke of “children under fire” in Gaza, exclaiming, “enough is enough. They deserve better.”

They encouraged protestors and bystanders alike to “remember the lost, the starving, and the missing beneath the rubble.”

“Over 10,000 children have been killed in Israel’s genocide against Gaza. The World Health Organisation estimates one child is killed every ten minutes,” they said.

They added, “in addition to the violence inflicted on them via air strikes and Israel’s ground invasion, children are perishing from a lack of food, water, and access to medical care and hygiene products.”

These shortages, they said, come as a result of “the conditions created by Israel’s aggression making it impossible for humanitarian aid to enter the territory.”

One protestor, named Mary, told the Cyprus Mail “what is happening in Gaza is unacceptable. It is a crime against humanity. We cannot remain passive.”

“Palestinians have been suffering for decades, but this is the peak. The Israeli government is behaving shamelessly,” she said.

The protest comes a day after another had taken place in Nicosia’s Eleftheria square, where protestors had returned to the capital “to raise our voices against the continued genocide in Gaza and the escalation of violence in the occupied territories.”

They criticised the European Union and other western powers for electing to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) “exactly when more aid is needed” after some members of the organisation were accused of being involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.

They added their demands for an immediate permanent ceasefire, and end to the blockade of humanitarian aid entering Gaza, and for Israel to take its “hands off the West Bank”.

In addition, the protest comes just hours after the United Kingdom had for the third time used its Akrotiri air force base in Cyprus as a launchpad to bomb Yemen.

The strikes are aimed at positions held by the Houthi movement, a Shia Islamist organisation allegedly backed by Iran which controls much of the west of Yemen and has been attacking ships passing through the Red Sea in response to the west’s support for Israel.