THOUSANDS took to the streets of London on Saturday afternoon to demand the government cease arming Israel as the Metropolitan Police force was forced to drop its attempt to disrupt the protest.

Demonstrators set off from Piccadilly Circus, with the march passing alongside Hyde Park before ending near the Israeli embassy on Kensington Road.

The Met said that eight people were arrested on the day, two of them counterprotesters held for breach of the peace and assaulting police officers.

Last week, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that 30 arms export licences to Israel would be suspended over concerns that they might be used to commit serious violations of international law.

But Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal said that the campaigners’ work goes on — “to end the arms trade with Israel in its entirety and end all other UK diplomatic, military and financial support for this genocidal state.”

He said that organisers of the protest had faced two weeks of “difficult, frustrating and unnecessary struggle with the police” as they imposed “arbitrary conditions [on the protest] that were unjustified and unevidenced.”

“Finally, at the 11th hour, they have seen sense and reverted back to accepting our planned and advertised timings,” he said. “If this was part of a strategy to deter us from marching and put our supporters off coming, it has failed and will continue to fail.

“We march to end the genocide, to end the occupation and end apartheid. We will not stop until that day.”

Pro-Palestine protests took place across Britain, including in Manchester, where Palestinian children led a weekly march organised by Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine.

Spokesman John Nicholson said: “Israel has bombed the schools and killed the teachers and it has bombed the children and then bombed the hospitals where injured children need to be treated.

“We can give one 10th of a cheer for the government scrapping one 10th of the arms licences for Israel. 

“That shows that these arms are wrong and the only option is to scrap the lot. Stop arming Israel now.”

The demonstrations followed a rare public statement by senior MI6 and CIA officials that they were together “working ceaselessly” for a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, and have “exploited our intelligence channels to push hard for restraint and de-escalation” in the Middle East.