Tens of thousands of red-clad protesters march through The Hague on Sunday to demand government action to seek a halt to Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
Organisers called it the country’s biggest demonstration in two decades, with human rights groups and agencies — including Amnesty International, Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders — estimating the peaceful crowd at more than 100,000 people.
The streets of the Dutch political capital were packed with the old, young and even some babies on their first protest.
“We hope this is a wake-up call for the government,” said teacher Roos Lingbeek, attending the march with her husband and their 12-week-old daughter, Dido, who slept in a carrier as her parents brandished a sign simply reading: “STOP.”
The march went past the Peace Palace, headquarters of the United Nations’ International Court of Justice, where last year judges ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza.
Protesters walked a 5-kilometre loop around the city centre of The Hague, to symbolically create the red line they say the government has failed to set.
“We are calling on the Dutch government: stop political, economic and military support to Israel as long as it blocks access to aid supplies and while it is guilty of genocide, war crimes and structural human rights violations in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” Marjon Rozema of Amnesty International said.
Dutch policy toward Israel is just one of many issues causing splits in the Netherlands’ fragile coalition government. Hard-right leader Geert Wilders is staunchly pro-Israel and his anti-immigrant Party for Freedom holds the largest number of seats in the country’s parliament.
In a post on X, Wilders accused the protesters of supporting Hamas, calling them “confused.”
Last week, however, foreign affairs minister Caspar Veldkamp of the minority centre-right VVD party urged the European Union to review a trade agreement with Israel, arguing that its blockade of humanitarian aid violated international law. Wilders hit back, denouncing the call as an “affront to cabinet policy.”
Additional sources • AP
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