Pro-Pal celebrate 7 October, charges and clashes

A few hundred pro-Pal demonstrators took to the streets of Turin and Bologna to celebrate the massacre of 7 October, in response to the call of the Young Palestinians. In Bologna, clashes broke out in the evening between the demonstrators and the police in Via Rizzoli, just outside Piazza Maggiore. The police also used water cannons to disperse the young people who had flocked to Piazza del Nettuno, despite the bans. The police also resorted to a couple of charges. The areas had already been cordoned off by a massive deployment of the police, who had been given precise instructions to contain the excesses.

In mattinata l’appello del ministro dell’Interno Matteo Piantedosi a “non macchiare la ricorrenza di una grande tragedia”. Ma la ’celebrazione’ si è svolta a Torino, a piazza Castello e a Bologna, a piazza del Nettuno. I volantini delle mobilitazioni parlavano chiaro: ’Viva il sette di ottobre, viva la resistenza palestinese’. In serata le due piazze si sono riempite di persone con bandiere, megafoni e kefiah al collo. Gli slogan: ’Palestina libera dal fiume fino al mare’ ed invettive contro “l’entità sionista”. C’è stato quindi un cinturamento delle aree da parte delle forze dell’ordine in tenuta antisommossa che ad un certo punto ha impedito ulteriori ingressi, tra le urla degli attivisti. “Vergogna, ci impediscono di manifestare”, hanno gridato.

The day comes at a very hot time in terms of public order after last week's large demonstrations - with street clashes -. On the approximately 200 sensitive Israeli targets, protection measures have been raised to the highest levels: neighbourhoods, synagogues, diplomatic representations, shops, and airline headquarters. Piantedosi did not hide the fact that 7 October is "a worrying day" because of the announced initiatives. "Then," he added, "I always trust that common sense will prevail and I trust above all in the preventive activity that the police forces are able to carry out. There is in fact careful monitoring of antagonist, anarchist and pro-Pal hard-line circles, from which the groups of hooded men who have staged urban guerrilla warfare in several centres in recent days, favoured by the large numbers of participants in the demonstrations, come.

The official commemoration of 7 October by the Jewish communities has been postponed to Sunday 12 October, out of respect for the holiday of Sukkot, and will take place in Rome in the presence of political authorities and institutional representatives. In the morning in Piazza San Carlo in Milan there was a flash mob to remember the victims of the massacre, while the Seventh October Association launched a communication campaign with photos of the massacre, through a Qr on its website, "not to forget the horror of the massacre perpetrated by Islamic terrorists and to counter the hatred that permeates the squares and public debate".