May 16th, 2026 was the 36th march for Palestine, a march through London to mark Nakba Day, the 78th anniversary of the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948 during the founding of Israel. The estimated size of our demonstration was 250,000, ten times more than the far-right demonstration organised by Tommy Robinson held on the same day. Our march was as peaceful as all the previous 35 marches, attended by people of all ages and ethnicities and of all faiths and none. At end of the march there was a children’s area where children wrote messages in coloured pens to the children in Gaza. The Metropolitan Police deployed 4,000 officers on the day but very few were present on our route. The only cluster of police officers, around 20, that we saw were ‘protecting’ around five counter-demonstrators who were holding Israeli flags.
Random encounters with extraordinary people are what makes these marches so uplifting. We chatted to one fellow marcher holding up a placard who turned out to be a retired surgeon from Plymouth, Mark Couchman, founder of Limbs for Children which makes 3D-printed prosthetics for child amputees in Gaza. Gaza has the biggest cohort of child amputees per capita in the world. Mark told us: ‘It used to cost about £15,000 but now we can make a prosthetic limb for a child for around £60.’ He has 1000 prosthetics ready to take into Gaza, but the IDF are blocking them. Another elderly demonstrator told us that when a policeman patted her dog she had responded, ‘You do know he’s a four-legged terrorist don’t you?’
Speeches
A French national assembly member drew comparisons between those in power on both sides of the channel; both sides are complicit in genocide, France has its own Tommy Robinsons, and the pro-Palestinian movement is being repressed in both countries. Silence will protect no one and so we must carry on.
Jeremy Corbyn began by saying we were commemorating Nakba Day when three-quarters of a million Palestinians were expelled from their homes. He made the point that Netanyahu’s greater Israel plan is creating a new Nakba by attempting to drive Palestinians into Sinai and into Jordan. Settlers armed by the IDF are killing people, stealing land, water and farm animals with impunity. He called out the British government for continuing to arm Israel and for ignoring the charge of genocide against Israel.
The next speaker was Hala Hanina, an activist from Gaza who drew attention to the beautiful dress she was wearing showing the history of Palestine, hand-embroidered by five sisters. In December 2024 the sisters were killed by an Israeli bomb. Despite ‘the ceasefire’, she said, there is no actual ceasefire. She highlighted the plight of the 9,100 Palestinian hostages held in Israel jails, being tortured and sexually abused to the anguish of families waiting for them to come home. Ben Gvir openly celebrates creating harsher and more inhumane prison conditions for Palestinians. Palestinians in refugee camps are starving and deprived of essential medicines.
A woman representing the Jewish bloc, Talia Woodin, began by stating that her mother’s entire family had been killed in the Holocaust and that her grandparents had always resisted Zionism and believed in the Jewish tenets of truth and justice for all. She poured shame on the Metropolitan Police for privileging Tommy Robinson by giving him the platform of central London on Nakba Day. She finished with the rallying call, ‘we have nothing to lose but our chains. Shabat shalom and free Palestine’.
Hossam Madhoun, founder of Gaza's Theatre for Everybody, writer and children’s activist, spoke next. His family is still in Gaza suffering starvation and torment. The legacy of the Geneva Convention on the rights of people under occupation is being crushed by Israel. The ongoing genocide is a disgraceful scar on humanity. Hossam’s voice started breaking as he quoted John Donne: ‘No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main’, adding: ‘Free Palestine, free humanity’.
A speaker from the Muslim Council of Great Britain began by saying to great applause that antisemitism has no place in our society. He expressed the importance of all communities joining together in solidarity. We must stand up for the humanity and dignity of every person. A society that chooses justice and dignity can overcome the hardest of times.
Samira Ali from Women Against the Far Right told the crowd, ‘Our movement is subject to smears and lies but hatred comes from the far right and not from our movement.’
The 88-year-old Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos has attended almost every demonstration in the last two year’s protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza. He is a member of the group ‘Holocaust Survivors & Descendants Against the Genocide in Gaza’.
He told us: ‘Today, we commemorate not only the 1948 violent displacement and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs during the creation of the State of Israel, but the unlawful occupation of Palestinian land and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.’
‘Justice for the Palestinians must be demanded and fought for by peoples of the world to force their own governments to act to end Israel's genocide, occupation and apartheid.’ He added: ‘That is why these marches have been attacked so much – it is the threat we pose to injustice. And the symbol of solidarity and hope we represent.’
Other scheduled speakers were, Diane Abbott MP, John McDonnell MP, Zarah Sultana MP, Ghassan Abu-Sitta
h, Ahmed Alnaouq, Andrea Egan, Fran Heathcote, Daniel Kebede and Rafeef Ziadah.
The police and the media portray our protests as ‘hate marches’ but on Nakba Day we showed that demonstrations are motivated by love and the yearning for justice for all.