PRO-PALESTINE protesters gathered across the world in a Global Day of Action over the weekend to demand a ceasefire as the bombardment of Gaza reached 100 bloody days.

The Stop the War Coalition said millions of protesters marched in more than 120 cities, across 45 countries and on six continents on Saturday in opposition to Israel’s murderous assaults on Gaza and the bombing of Yemen by the United States and Britain.

“The attacks on Yemen by the US and UK represent a dangerous escalation of the war in the Middle East,” the group said.

“This madness must stop. Let’s build the anti-war movement — it is through our numbers that we gain our strength.”

Thousands marched in London alongside the 3.5 metre (11.5-foot) puppet Little Amal, which originally represented the suffering of Syrian refugees, to highlight the plight of displaced Gazans as a result of Israel’s war on the strip.

Speakers included former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald, who called for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire.”

Ms McDonald told crowds that Palestinian freedom was possible, saying: “When I say this, standing in London, in common cause with you, (having) walked our own journey out of conflict, building peace for 25 years, this can happen.

“This must happen and we will ensure that it does.”

Palestinian ambassador to Britain Husam Zomlot, said the British government was “complicit” with Israel.

He said Palestine was a “nation of freedom fighters,” saying: “I stand before you with a broken heart, but not a broken spirit.”

Mr Zomlot congratulated South Africa for bringing a genocide case against Israel at the UN’s International Court of Justice.

Some 1,700 Met police officers were deployed to the march and a number of conditions were placed, including a directive that no participant in the protest shall venture near the Israeli embassy.

In the US capital Washington, thousands of people gathered opposite the White House, with messages to US President Joe Biden on signs reading: “No votes for Genocide Joe,” “Biden has blood on his hands” and “Let Gaza live.”

Protests also took place across Europe including Paris, Milan and Dublin.

In Rome, hundreds of demonstrators descended on a boulevard near the famous Colosseum, with some carrying signs reading: “Stop genocide.”

At one point during the protest, amid sound effects mimicking exploding bombs, several demonstrators laid down in the street and pulled white sheets over themselves pretending to be dead, while others knelt beside them, their palms covered in red paint.

Protests also took place within Israel, with local peace groups opposing their government’s war.

Today, branches of Barclays Bank across Britain will be targeted for protests over their financing of arms firms profiting from the sale of weapons used to attack Gaza.

Among the groups taking part will be Palestine support organisations in Yorkshire and those affiliated to Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine, who will target Barclays in Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Blackburn, Bolton, Huddersfield, Stockport, Bradford, Altrincham and Preston at 1pm.

The Greater Manchester group said: “The Palestinians in Gaza have been subjected to more than three months of genocide, during which we were witnesses to the continuous atrocities that are leaving people dead, unsafe, detained, brutalised, cold and hungry.

“The Israeli regime has managed to escalate a 75-year-old brutal settler-colonial regime right in front of everyone’s eyes.

“Israel does not operate alone. It has a wider web of establishment and companies operating for its benefit and prolonging its systematic violence against Palestinians.”

The group said these “bloodthirsty profiteers of extermination are operating right here on our doorstep,” including Barclays which has over £1 billion investment in weapons manufacturers involved in the war in Gaza.

“Now it’s time to escalate and raise our fight to a new level,” it added.

“These funds come from the clients of Barclays, turning any one of them into to an accomplice.”

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that his government will continue to “pursue its war against Hamas until victory,” in response to the day of action and the legal proceedings at the International Court of Justice.

“No-one will stop us, not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anyone else,” he said in televised comments.

The violence continued to spread in the region yesterday after an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon hit a residential area near its border with Israel, killing two people.

Israel has been trading fire with the country’s Hezbollah group almost daily since its offence in Gaza began.

More than 23,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, with thousands forced to flee their homes and international observers warning of an increased humanitarian crisis and famine.

Mr Netanyahu and his army chief, Herzl Halevi, said they have no immediate plans to allow the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza, the initial focus of Israel’s offensive.

Fighting in the northern half has been scaled back in recent days, with forces now focusing on the southern city of Khan Younis.

Mr Netanyahu also said that Israel would eventually need to close what he said were breaches along Gaza’s border with Egypt, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled to in a bid to find safety.

The Gaza Health Ministry said on Saturday that 135 Palestinians had been killed in the last 24 hours.

Following an Israeli air strike before dawn on Saturday, a video by Gaza’s Civil Defence Department showed rescue workers searching through the twisted rubble of a building in Gaza City by flashlight.

Footage showed them carrying a young girl wrapped in blankets with injuries to her face, and at least two other children who appeared dead.

A boy was seen crying out as he was loaded into an ambulance.

Less than half of the territory’s 36 hospitals are still partially functional, according to OCHA, the UN’s humanitarian affairs agency.

Amid already severe shortages of food, clean water and fuel in Gaza, OCHA said in its daily report yesterday that Israel’s severe constraints on humanitarian missions and outright denials had increased since the start of the year.

The agency said only 21 per cent of planned deliveries of food, medicine, water and other supplies have been successfully reaching northern Gaza.