THOUSANDS OF Palestine supporters took to the streets in towns and cities across Britain on Saturday in a renewed wave of anger against Israel’s continuing slaughter in Gaza.

The protests were followed a day later by at least 87 people being massacred by an Israeli air attack on the city of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.

Local reports say most of those killed were women and children. 

With no ceasefire on the horizon and the death toll mounting across Gaza and Lebanon, Palestine support groups called for no let-up in the protests and in support for the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.

In London more than 30,000 demonstrators rallied, packing Trafalgar Square and Whitehall to hear speaker after speaker vilify Israel for its genocide and the Westminster government for failing to halt the flow of weapons from Britain’s arms firms to Israel.

Elsewhere protests ranged from the Orkneys to the Isle of Wight, from small vigils and die-ins in local communities to marches in towns and cities involving many hundreds, all with the same call — an end to the slaughter. 

Organisers of the London protest — who include the Palestinian Forum in Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, the Muslim Association of Britain, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and Stop the War Coalition — called for an immediate end to Israel’s attacks on Gaza and the lifting of Israel’s brutal blockade trapping over 400,000 Palestinians in northern Gaza under relentless bombardment.

Stop the War vice-chair Chris Nineham told the rally: “What is so sickening and disturbing is that Netanyahu, Biden and our government have no red lines. Children are being burnt alive, populations buried under rubble, and war with Iran looms, and yet the West continues to support Israel.

“This great movement has already defied threats to ban demonstrations, unseated a home secretary, forced the government to cut arms sales and to agree to arrest Netanyahu should he ever visit.”

Mr Nineham added: “We have, however, much more to do. We must deepen and broaden the movement and we must escalate. We have to make it impossible for our government to continue supporting this barbarity.”

Other speakers included journalist and author Gary Younge, John McDonnell MP, Fran Heathcote, general secretary of Civil Service union PCS, Phil Clarke, president of teaching union NEU, comedian and author Alexei Sayle and journalist Ahmed Alnaouq who has lost more than 20 members of his family in Gaza.

After the rally, protesters laid flowers at the gates of Downing Street demanding Prime Minister Keir Starmer “stops looking away from the horrors in Gaza.”

But despite the continuing demands for a ceasefire, the Israelis have continued to carry out their relentless attacks on the Palestinians in Gaza.

Authorities in Gaza confirmed that at least 87 people were killed by the Israeli air attack on the city of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.

According to the Gaza government media office, the raid on the city of Beit Lahiya during the early hours of this morning targeted several houses and a multistorey residential building.

Authorities say that many more casualties were likely still trapped under the demolished buildings. Some 40 other Palestinians are known to have been injured by the attack.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza said an eyewitness “described the massive explosion resulting from multiple air strikes shaking the very foundations of the surrounding areas.”

At least 10 relatives of Al Jazeera’s Arabic correspondent, Anas al-Sharif, were reportedly killed during the attack in Beit Lahiya.

Also reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said: “Civil defence teams are trying to pull people out from under the rubble, either with their bare hands or with minimum equipment,” adding that they were able to rescue a baby girl from the site on Sunday.

Mr Sharif posted on the X social media site: “Today, while covering the massacre by Israeli occupation forces in Beit Lahiya, I was shocked to discover that one of the homes targeted in the air strike belonged to my cousin.” 

A communications blackout imposed by the Israelis across Beit Lahiya, Jabalia and Beit Hanoon, has cut off phone and internet access.

It is also hampering rescue efforts in an area where the Israelis have enforced a brutal 16-day military siege which has cut off access to food, water, medicine and other essential services.

He added that the debris from the Israeli attack had made it difficult for paramedics and Palestinian Civil Defence members to conduct rescue missions.

The Israeli military claimed that it had used precise munitions against a Hamas target. 

Mounir al-Bursh, director general of the Health Ministry, said the flood of wounded from the strikes compounded “an already catastrophic situation for the healthcare system” in northern Gaza, in a post on X.

Doctors Without Borders, the international charity known by its French acronym MSF, called on Israeli forces to immediately stop their attacks on hospitals in northern Gaza after the Health Ministry said Israeli troops had fired on two hospitals over the weekend.

“The ever-worsening escalation of violence and non-stop Israeli military operations that we have been witnessing over the past two weeks in northern Gaza have horrifying consequences,” said Anna Halford, an emergency co-ordinator for MSF.

Israel’s military said it was operating near one of the hospitals but had not fired directly at it, and that it was carrying out an investigation.

An earlier Israeli air attack in Jabalia killed at least 33 Palestinians. The Kamal Adwan and the Indonesian hospitals in Beit Lahiya were bombed today. The al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia was also bombed on Saturday.

On Saturday, a drone targeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house in the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea. No casualties were reported. It wasn’t clear if the house was hit.

Mr Netanyahu said: “The proxies of Iran who today tried to assassinate me and my wife made a bitter mistake.”

Hezbollah didn’t claim responsibility but said it carried out several rocket attacks on Israel. 

Israel in turn carried out at least 10 air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs known as Dahiyeh, a heavily populated area home to Hezbollah's offices, Lebanese authorities said. Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah targets.

Meanwhile, sources in the United States say authorities are investigating an unauthorised release of classified documents indicating that Israel was moving military assets into place for a military strike in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack on October 1.