UK pro-Palestinian protests went ahead Saturday despite a plea from Prime Minister Keir Starmer, two days after a deadly car-ramming and knife attack on a synagogue.Four people — two men and two  women — remained in custody on suspicion of terrorism-linked offences following Thursday’s attack.An 18-year-old woman and a 43-year-old man who had been held earlier were released and would face no further action, police said.Two people were killed and three others seriously wounded in the assault in the northwestern city of Manchester on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.Police shot dead assailant Jihad Al-Shamie, a 35-year-old UK citizen of Syrian descent, within minutes of the alarm being raised.The attack has heightened fear among Britain’s Jewish community.Police said they were patrolling places of worship across the city “with a particular focus on providing a high-visibility presence within our Jewish communities”.The attack on Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in north Manchester was one of the worst antisemitic incidents in Europe since the October 7, 2023, attack in Israel led by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive on the Gaza Strip has killed at least 66,288 Palestinians, also mostly civilians, according to health ministry figures in the occupied territory that the United Nations considers reliable.The conflict has inflamed passions in Britain, with frequent pro-Palestinian rallies in cities that some critics allege have stoked antisemitism.Around 1,000 people on Saturday gathered in Trafalgar Square in central London to show their support for the banned Palestine Action group, organisers Defend Our Juries said.A spokesperson said the group “stood in solidarity” with the Jewish community over the attack, adding that “cancelling peaceful protests lets terror win”.A smaller demonstration organised by Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine attracted about 100 people in the city.- Accidental shooting -Ahead of the demonstrations, Starmer urged protesters not to join the rallies.”I urge anyone thinking about protesting this weekend to recognise and respect the grief of British Jews. This is a moment of mourning. It is not a time to stoke tension and cause further pain,” he said on X.Police said the total number of people arrested  at the London protest “for supporting a proscribed organisation” stood at 488.The oldest person arrested was 89, the Met said.Four people had been arrested for other offences.Some 297 remained in custody while the rest had been bailed, the force added.Since the government banned the group in early July, supporting it has become a criminal offence under the Terrorism Act 2000 and hundreds of people have been arrested at multiple protests.”I’m ready to be arrested,” a 21-year-old student, who did not want to be named, told AFP.”The ban of Palestine Action is undemocratic. It shouldn’t be a terrorist group, they haven’t killed anybody,” he said.David Cannon, 73, chair of the Jewish Network for Palestine said the demonstration was “totally separate” from what had happened in Manchester.”There’s nothing Jewish about genocide, about apartheid, about ethnic cleansing,” he said.The UK police watchdog, meanwhile, said it would probe the police shooting of attacker Shamie.The investigation would also examine the shooting dead, most likely by police, of one of the incident’s two victims who suffered a fatal gunshot as well as a third person who was shot but survived.The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said there was no evidence anyone other than police used firearms at the scene, meaning both were accidentally shot by armed officers as they tackled Shamie.”Our independent investigation will look at circumstances surrounding the fatal police shooting of Jihad Al-Shamie,” it said in a statement.”A post mortem has today (Friday) concluded another man who died at the scene suffered a fatal gunshot wound.”

Huge numbers turned out at pro-Palestinian rallies in Europe on Saturday, calling for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and the release of activists on board a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to the territory.The police in Rome said some 250,000 turned out for a fourth day of protests, after Israel intercepted the 45-strong flotilla seeking to reach Gaza earlier this week.Some 70,000 people took to the streets in Barcelona, according to the police, while the government in Madrid said nearly 92,000 marched in the Spanish capital.Elsewhere, several thousand people marched through the centre of the Irish capital, Dublin, to mark what organisers said was “two years of genocide” in Gaza.With Ireland, Spain is one of the fiercest European critics of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas militants’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip.But in Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right government has been criticised for its inaction on the siege of the Palestinian territory.On Saturday, Meloni accused demonstrators of defacing a statue of Pope John Paul II with graffiti in front of Rome’s main train station, calling it a “shameful act”. “They claim to take to the streets for peace, but they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace,” she said in a statement.Protesters in the Italian capital, including families with children, shouted, “We are all Palestinians”, “Free Palestine” and “Stop the genocide”, with many carrying Palestinian flags and wearing black-and-white chequered keffiyehs.”Usually, I don’t appreciate large-scale demonstrations, but today, I couldn’t bring myself to stay home,” Donato Colucci, a 44-year-old scout leader accompanying 150 youths from a secular association, told AFP. “I think countries like Italy, France, and Spain have developed a culture of resistance and democratic values more than others because they experienced dictatorship and violence.”In Barcelona, Marta Carranza, a 65-year-old pensioner demonstrating with a Palestinian flag on her back, said Israel’s policy “has been wrong for many years and we have to take to the streets”.- Solidarity -The Global Sumud flotilla, which was intercepted on Wednesday, left Barcelona in early September and had been seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, where the United Nations says famine has taken hold.Around 50 Spaniards on the flotilla have been detained by Israel, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told public television in an interview aired on Saturday. The flotilla organisers say Israel’s actions were “illegal” since they intercepted the vessels while they were traversing international waters. In Paris, where some 10,000 people gathered, a spokesperson for the French contingent of Global Sumud, Helene Coron, told the crowd: “We’ll never stop. “This flotilla didn’t get to Gaza. But we’ll send another, then another until Palestine and Gaza are free.”Jordi Bas, a 40-year-old primary school teacher waving a Palestinian flag in Barcelona, said he was not surprised by the huge turn-out. “People are beginning to wake up a bit,” he added, saying “the whole world is mobilising in solidarity”.On September 14, around 100,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators forced the halt of the final stage of the Vuelta a Espana cycling race in the Spanish capital, where an Israeli team was competing.Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Israel should be barred from international sport over the Gaza war, just as Russia was penalised over its invasion of Ukraine.In September, Spain said it would ban imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which have been described by UN rights chief Volker Turk as a war crime.In Ireland, speakers called for sanctions on Israel and an immediate end to the conflict — and Palestinian involvement in the ceasefire plan.In London, police said they made at least 442 arrests at a gathering in support of the proscribed Palestine Action group. Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged protesters to stay home this weekend, after a deadly synagogue attack on Thursday.burs-phz/gv