Hundreds attend pro-Israel and pro-Palestine rally in Lausanne
Keystone-SDA
Hundreds of people took to the streets in Lausanne on Thursday evening in favour of Israel on the one hand and the Palestinians on the other. During the counter-demonstration to the pro-Israel silent march, there were clashes between pro-Palestine demonstrators and the police.
+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
The numerous law enforcement officers present had to use tear gas grenades and a water truck, among other things, to push back the pro-Palestinian activists, whose demonstration was not authorised.
The situation came to a head after the demonstration had moved from Place de la Riponne to St-Laurent. Calm returned at around 7:30pm.
According to a count by the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA, more than 2,000 people took part in this counter-demonstration. Waving numerous Palestinian flags, those present loudly chanted their support for the Palestinian people and verbally attacked the “colonial state” of the “Zionists”.
+ Why Switzerland doesn’t recognise Palestine as a state
The Israel sympathisers remained in Ouchy by the lake. More than 200 people took part in the silent march organised by the Swiss-Israeli Association and approved by the Lausanne police. Under police protection, the demonstrators with Israeli and Swiss flags remained in the area of the old harbour and marched behind a banner with the motto of the rally: “For Israel – Against Anti-Semitism”.
At the end of the rally, at around 7:30 pm, the organisers took the floor and demanded the release of the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Translated from German by DeepL/ts
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch
