Cost of Policing Gaza Protests in London Reaches £32 Million

People take part in a pro-Palestine march in central London on March 9, 2024. Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire

The cost of policing Gaza-related protests in London has reached over £32 million, the Metropolitan Police said on Friday ahead of another major demonstration on Saturday.

The march, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), is the fifth major demonstration of the year so far, the Met said.

PSC said ahead of the event that it was expecting “hundreds of thousands of people” to march from Hyde Park Corner to the U.S. Embassy.

Demonstrations and vigils related to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the UK began on Oct. 9, 2023, two days after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel and one day after Israel declared war on Hamas.

A coalition of pro-Palestine campaigners led by PSC has since organised large-scale marches or nationwide demonstrations every week. There have also been smaller but more aggressive protests and intimidation targeting MPs.

The PSC marches are mostly non-violent, but critics of anti-Semitic elements have described the demonstrations as “hate marches,” branded central London a “no-go zone for Jews every weekend,” and called on the police to take action over controversial slogans or ban the marches.

The constant demonstrations have also added significant pressure on police resources. Ahead of the latest PSC march on Saturday, the Met said the policing of demonstrations related to the war has so far “required 35,464 officer shifts, and more than 5,200 officer rest days to be cancelled, and costs of £32.3 million.”

This weekend’s march came with a small Jewish counter-protest, one demonstration to mark the so-called International Women’s Weekend, and a number of football matches.

Commander Karen Findlay, who’s responsible for policing across London this Saturday, said the Met would continue to use a “full range” of legal powers to manage the protests.

Ms. Findlay said the police are “clearly operating in a context” where Jewish and Muslim communities “continue to be highly concerned about anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hate crime and their own sense of safety in London.”

There is no standalone “hate crime” in England’s statute book. The police record any criminal offence which is perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person’s actual or perceived race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or sexuality as a hate crime. Once a defendant is convicted of a crime, the Crown Prosecution Service can ask the court to increase the sentence if the crime has been flagged as a “hate crime.”

Ms. Findlay said the police recognise “the very real anxiety and fear of individuals who are worried about perceived or actual threats they are subject to,” adding that the protests would be policed according to the law.

“Our role remains to police impartially, being robust in tackling hate crime and extremism, and ensuring protest is managed within the law. We have to police to the law as it is, not as others would wish it to be,” she said.

It comes as the government’s Independent Commissioner for Countering Extremism Robin Simcox warned that extremist networks had become “emboldened” since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in Israel and that radical groups had “gone unchallenged for too long.”

Lord Walney, the independent adviser on political violence and disruption, recently told The Telegraph there’s “an unholy alliance between far-Left groups and some of the Islamist extremism that has been seen on the marches.”

PSC director Ben Jamal said: “Despite further attempts by government ministers, including the prime minister, and Lord Walney, to demonise those protesting and suppress calls for a ceasefire, hundreds of thousands will again be taking to the streets.”

“We will continue to protest until a ceasefire is called, and until there is an end to all UK complicity with Israel’s decades long oppression of the Palestinian people,” he said.

The organiser of a counter-protest to the pro-Palestine marches in London said such demonstrations mean “Jews can’t go out in the street.”

Itai Galmudy said that pro-Palestine demonstrations had created “no-go zones for Jewish people” in the capital and “ballooned into anti-Israeli hate marches.”

Mr. Galmudy said he organised Saturday afternoon’s counter-protest with a “collective of people that share the same frustrations” with the pro-Palestine marches.

He said he was “very concerned” that counter-protesters might encounter violence, adding that it would “probably reflect” in the number of people attending the demonstration in Victoria, central London.

“We will just not accept that Jews can’t go out in the street because somebody wants to protest,” Mr. Galmudy said.

“Those marches have ballooned into anti-Israeli hate marches and we think it’s enough. We don’t want to live in fear and we will not accept it.

“We want to exercise our democratic right to stand up and tell them that it’s not okay.

“There is no room in our society for protests that don’t allow other people to live next to them,” he said.

Mr. Galmudy said he was expecting “50–100 people maximum” to attend the counter-protest, adding “people are afraid and not everybody’s willing to take the risk.”

He said: “We know that those [pro-Palestine] protests are not as peaceful as some people tell us they are.

“I’m concerned for this country because letting the mob run a country is not the way. There is a law and we should all be held accountable to it.”

PA Media and Victoria Friedman contributed to this report.