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Majida Alaskari was addressing a huge crowd at Free Derry Wall on Sunday afternoon during a rally organised by the Derry branch of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC).

Thanking all those who stood with Palestine, Majida Alaskari said she had not spoken at the previous rally as she had just heard about losing her brother and his family.

"It was so difficult to handle in that moment, but now I am much calmer, even though I lost more.”

Palestinian woman Majida Alaskari addressing the rally at Free Derry Corner.

Majida Alsakari said: "Recently since October 7, there are 7,822 died in the last attacks. 3,832 are children- they don’t have guns, weapons, they don’t have even stones in their hands…. we have to educate people about what is going on.”

She said she had spoken to her niece, who expressed a desire to thank everyone who has sent humanitarian donations for the people of Gaza, “but the other support it was really ugly, because they sent the bombs, the guns, the weapons, the chemical bombs to kill us…. so please speak about us.”

"I really would like to request not only to stand with Gaza but to speak loud and request to kick out the United States ambassador and the Israeli ambassador. Because if they are accepted here in your country, your land, that means you are accepting their ideology.”

chanting

Some of the large attendance at the rally in Derry.

Majida led an international chanting and was answered by those gathered as they declared: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, and ‘In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians’.

Derry woman Betty Doherty, who described herself as ‘just a wee granny from the Bog’, also address the rally.

She said: “I am sitting in my house watching the images on television and I can’t believe how the western world has just turned its back and they don’t give a damn about Palestinians. They have lost all moral authority. I despair because nobody is doing nothing and there is just semantics with language.”

Betty Doherty said the President of the US, Joe Biden should be banned from Irish soil, and she had this message for whichever officials removed the coloured cards used to light up the City Walls in the colours of the Palestinian flag on Friday last: “Wait till I tell yous, we are Derry people and we have been to the forefront of civil rights and you name it all our lives, all our lives, and we have always fought for anybody that is an underdog and I’ll tell you now I’ll be the first to be putting them back on again.”

Derry woman Betty Doherty addressing those gathered.

Speaking about the forthcoming Halloween festival finale in Derry, she added: “See on Tuesday night when they give off the fireworks here and you hear the bangs of those fireworks, just imagine what it feels like to be sitting in Gaza and those bombs to be coming over one at a time.”

standards

Catherine Hutton, chair of Derry IPSC, told those gathered she was sick to the stomach of double standards. “What does it it take to show your humanity? What does it take? You showed it last year with Ukraine, flags everywhere football matches, everything. Why isn’t Palestine the same? Do the people of Palestine matter any less than the rest of us? No.”

Liam McDaid from Derry streetwear company AMACH, which has designed clothing in solidarity with Palestine in aid of the charity Medical Aid Palestine (MAP), told those gathered:

A section of the large attendance at the rally.

“Just for the record, I do not want a single person to be hurt, I do not want a single person to die. I want peace and liberation for everyone. But if we accept this crisis started on October 7 then we have already bought into the narrative of an extreme right wing government in Israel and I refuse to accept that.”

People Before Profit Colr. Shaun Harkin said that the voice of people across the world was growing stronger.

To cheers and applause, he commended the young people who took Palestinian flags into the Brandywell and those young people who lit up the Derry Walls on Friday.

bombed

"That was the night when Israel turned off the lights in Gaza and bombed it into hell, and to see those Walls lit up in solidarity with Palestine meant that we were saying to Palestine, we can see what is happening to you, we are going to be your voice, we are not going to be silent, we are not going to allow murder to exist without speaking out.”

He said it was “shameful” that those lights were taken down and called for the walls to be lit up every night.

To more applause, Colr. Harkin said thousands of American Jewish people were protesting in the biggest ever numbers to say no to the Siege.

Sinn Féin Councillor Christopher Jackson told those at the rally that today “Gaza is being destroyed before the eyes of the world as Israel unleashes its full military might on a defenceless population. Over 20,000 children, women and men are either dead or injured, more than a million Palestinians displaced, and countless homes, hospitals and schools have been turned to rubble.”

As he spoke, some voices in the crowd called upon Colr. Jackson to explicitly back the calls for an expulsion of the Israeli ambassadors after the party abstained from a motion which called for this last week.

There was also applause from the crowd as he said: “There needs to be an end to the slaughter now.”

The rally ended with a poignant poem delivered by Grian Ní Dhaimhín from Strabane which called upon people to stand up and be counted now.

An open meeting will be hosted by Derry IPSC at 7pm on Friday at Pilot’s Row,.

Derry rally: 'In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinian'