Tens of thousands of people are expected to gather in London on Saturday afternoon for two major protests, one commemorating the 78th anniversary of the Nakba in Palestine and another led by far-right political activist Stephen Yaxley Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson.
Some 4,000 police officers will be dispatched to manage the protests, including hundreds from outside London.
The annual pro-Palestine event will start at Exhibition Road in Kensignton and a gathering will be held at Waterloo Place, while Robinson’s ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march will meet a few hundred metres away at Parliament Square.
Millions of Palestinians around the world are marking the anniverasary of the Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe”, which refers to violent Zionist militias killing and expelling around 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948, to pave the way for the creation of Israel.
The Metropolitan Police will for the first time deploy live facial recognition to monitor the protests and impose conditions on speakers for hate speech.
Dozens of pro-Israel counter-protesters at the 2025 Nakba march in London. [Getty]
