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Pro and anti-Israel protests draw hundreds in Berlin for Quds Day
Pro and anti-Israel protests draw hundreds in Berlin for Quds Day
Hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters took to the street to mark al-Quds day in Berlin, triggering another pro-Israel competing crowd to rally against them.
2 min read
The annual al-Quds march against Israel drew more than 1,000 participants [Getty]
Hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters took to the street on Saturday to mark al-Quds day in Germany's capital Berlin.
The protesters marched the streets to denounce Israeli aggression on Palestinians and call for an end to occupation.
Some chanted "Free Gaza" and "Palestine will be reborn".
One of the protesters highlighted Germany's "discomfort" in being critical towards Israel for fears of anti-Semitism.
"In Germany, people are not comfortable with expressions of criticism of Israel," he told .
"I want to show that supporting Palestinian rights is not anti-Semitic," he said.
"Israel is not representative of the Jewish community."
Meanwhile, dozens of pro-Israeli protesters gathered to counter rally against.
Prominent German politicians and members of the Jewish community took part in the competing rally, including Berlin's top security official, Andreas Geisel.
Police in the German capital kept the two protests apart.
Read more: Christian Palestinian group lambasts Germany for anti-BDS motion
Al-Quds Day, first initiated by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, come this year just weeks before the release of the long-awaited and widely panned US peace plan for the Middle East, focusing on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Protesters across Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Bahrain took to the streets on Friday, which marks Quds or Jerusalem Day, in an impassioned show of opposition to the plan, dubbed 'Deal of the Century', to be revealed by the US in the coming weeks.
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