A heavy police presence is building outside Town Hall ahead of a pro-Palestine vigil expected to draw hundreds of supporters on the anniversary of the October 7 attacks.
Supporters of Palestine and Lebanon will gather at a candlelight vigil after tens of thousands marched through Sydney on Sunday.
A large police presence at Town Hall. Credit: Oscar Colman
The route of the group’s weekly march was modified after NSW Police launched a Supreme Court bid to stop it from going ahead due to safety concerns.
The group tonight has been banned from marching or rallying, with only the 6pm vigil an authorised activity.
Palestine Action Group organiser Josh Lees said the group was planning a “peaceful” event.
“The kind of intense hostility that we’ve received for doing that, for organising that event, speaks volumes, I think, about the racist country we live in and the total disregard for Palestinian lives,” he said.
Lees disputed suggestions that holding the vigil on the anniversary of the attacks, in which 1200 Jewish people were killed, was insensitive and called the police response “deeply racist” and “outrageous”.
“The incredibly heavy-handed, over-the-top policing we’re seeing now is totally disproportionate to anything that’s actually been planned for tonight,” he said.
“If there’s any trouble tonight, it will absolutely be coming from the police, not from us.”
Zaid Alhajjeh, 22, whose family has marched at pro-Palestine rallies every week since October 7 last year, said the anniversary should be a reminder of Israeli occupations in the Middle East.
“Generation after generation [of Palestinians] has risen…and soon, God willing, this generation will be the generation that will liberate Palestine from the river to the sea,” he said.
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