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LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged students to skip pro-Palestinian protests planned for the second anniversary on Tuesday of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack in Israel, suggesting they were disrespectful.
Students from several London universities were due to walk out of classes at 2:00 p.m. (1300 GMT) before marching through the center of the British capital.
Rallies or events including vigils were also planned in other UK cities, including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Sheffield and Manchester, where an attack outside a synagogue on Thursday left two people dead — one killed in the attack, the other dying after suffering a fatal gunshot, likely from armed police officers.
Writing in the Times newspaper, Starmer alleged that regular pro-Palestinian protests have been used by some as a “despicable excuse to attack British Jews for something over which they have absolutely no responsibility.”
He called that “a total loss of empathy and humanity.”
Citing Tuesday’s planned protests, Starmer wrote: “This is not who we are as a country.
“It’s un-British to have so little respect for others. And that’s before some of them decide to start chanting hatred toward Jewish people all over again.”
The Jewish Bloc for Palestine said on Saturday the government was trying “to weaponize the fear and grief of our community by resurrecting a slur — that those protesting for Palestine represent a danger to Jews.”
In a separate statement marking the anniversary, Starmer said the past two years had seen “rising antisemitism” in the UK, including the car ramming and stabbing attack in Manchester, which took place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
“This is a stain on who we are, and this country will always stand tall and united against those who wish harm and hatred upon Jewish communities,” said the British leader.
Israel’s military offensive has killed at least 67,160 Palestinians over the last two years, according to health ministry figures in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
“Since that awful day, so many have endured a living nightmare,” Starmer said, vowing to continue efforts to bring home British hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
The prime minister, who made the landmark move for the UK to recognize a state of Palestine last month alongside other allies, welcomed the US plan “toward peace in the Middle East” in his statement.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations went ahead over the weekend in Britain, despite pleas by the government for protesters to refrain from gathering following the Manchester attack.
Activist group Defend Our Juries said calling for an end to pro-Palestinian protests following the Manchester attack were “wrongly conflating the actions of the Israeli state with all Jews.”
“Jewish people around the world are not responsible for Israel’s crimes and there are many Jewish people who do not support the actions of the Israeli state,” DOJ’s Zoe Cohen said on Saturday.
Separately, about 3,000 people gathered in central London on Sunday for a commemorative event to mark the October 7 anniversary, waving Israeli and Union Jack flags and holding posters of hostages.

GENEVA: The head of the UN refugee agency suggested Monday that President Donald Trump’s America has carried out deportation practices that violate international law, and criticized a wider “backlash” in some countries against migrants and refugees.
Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees, used a speech to lament that drastic funding cuts and shortages have forced his agency, UNHCR, to slash nearly 5,000 jobs this year, or nearly a quarter of its workforce. The cuts may not be finished, he said.
“This was certainly not an easy year for any of us,” Grandi told the opening of UNHCR’s executive committee. “But remember, please: There has never been an easy year to be a refugee — and there never will be.”
He did cite some bright spots and praised the Trump administration-led peace efforts in Congo, where conflict has displaced millions of people.
At the UN General Assembly last month, the Trump administration — which has slashed support this year for international humanitarian aid — pitched other countries on its view that the global system of seeking asylum has been abused and needs to be revamped, in part by cracking down on migration.
Other traditional donors have cut back their aid outlays for UNHCR this year.
In recent years, the agency has received roughly $5 billion a year — or half its budgetary requirements — even as conflict and repression in places like Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan, Venezuela and Ukraine have led the number of people fleeing their homes to roughly double over the last decade — to 122 million.
In the politically charged environment of today, Grandi said, “putting the (UN) Refugee Convention and the principle of asylum on the table would be a catastrophic error.” He insisted that “national sovereignty and the right to seek asylum ”are not incompatible. They are complementary.”
Grandi, whose term is up at the end of this year, decried an erosion of respect for international law in certain developed countries and noted that most refugees are taken in by poorer ones.
“I am worried that the current debate – in Europe, for example – and some current deportation practices – such as in the United States – address real challenges in manners not consistent with international law,” he said.
Tommy Pigott, a US State Department spokesman, defended US immigration and migration policies and said Trump’s speech at the United Nations was “a call to action against the destructive policies promoting mass and illegal migration that globalist bureaucrats have pushed for years.”
“Our actions are consistent with US law and the will of the American people, who demand secure borders and a lawful immigration system,” Pigott said.
Grandi also cited some optimistic developments: More than 1 million refugees from Syria have now returned home. A “glimmer of hope” has emerged in the eastern Congo conflict between Rwanda-backed forces and Congo’s armed forces.
“Thanks to peace efforts spearheaded by the United States, instead of speaking only of more bloodshed, or more refugees, we can start to think – cautiously, but a little bit more optimistically — of stability and returns,” he said.