Tens of thousands of Moroccans marched through Casablanca on Sunday in sympathy with Palestinians, according to AFP correspondents, more than three weeks into Israel’s deadly battle with Hamas.
“Stop the genocide in Gaza,” read one banner at the march, echoing claims by Palestinian officials and Arab leaders as the death toll in Gaza has topped 8,000 people, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
According to Israeli sources, Israel has blasted the tiny Palestinian enclave since Hamas militants launched huge assaults into southern Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,400 people, largely civilians.
Banners at the Casablanca event called for the “reopening of the Rafah crossing” between Gaza and Egypt, as well as the “closure of the Zionist (Israeli) liaison office in Rabat,” which opened after Morocco and Israel normalized relations in a US-brokered pact in 2020.
The anti-normalisation alliance of leftist parties and Islamists that organized the rally, Jamel El Assri, said the attendance demonstrated “once again that the Moroccan people speak with one voice, in support of the Palestinian people.”
This was just the latest rally to draw vast crowds in the North African country since the Israel-Hamas war began.
“We came to show our solidarity with the Palestinian people in their resistance, to appeal for the lifting of the blockade against Gaza and for an end to the war,” protester Amina Boukhelkhal told AFP.
Men, women and children, wearing keffiyeh scarves and brandishing Palestinian flags, streamed down a major road of the Moroccan economic capital, the AFP correspondents said.
The crowd chanted “the (Israeli) occupation must fall”, “the people want the liberation of Palestine” and “we reject normalisation”.
As part of the 2020 normalisation agreement, which saw Israel and Morocco establish formal ties, the United States recognised Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara.