More than 10,000 Arabs and Jews gathering Friday, July 25, against the war of extermination and starvation in Gaza at the city of Sakhnin in northern Israel sponsored by the Partnership for Peace coalition. Zo Haderekh reported a heavy police presence, but no arrests are reported. The police deployed forces to Sakhnin, setting up their troops at the municipal square and establishing checkpoints at the city’s main junction to hinder access to the demonstration who comes a day after 24 people were arrested at an anti-war protest in Haifa.
A Young Communist sign during the demonstration in Sakhnin: “Never again” in Hebrew, Arabic and English, Friday, July 25, 2025 (Photo: Voices against war)
Sakhnin mayor Mazen Ghanaim says in a speech at the protest that, “We and our people in Gaza are one nation. We demand full equality and civil rights, not more war.” A leading Communist Party of Israel activists and Hadash former lawmaker Mohammad Barakeh, who heads the High Follow-up Committee, an Arab community umbrella organization, says the demonstration is “here to send a clear message against genocide, ethnic cleansing and starvation.” He assails the police build-up at the protest as if he was seeking to intimidate protesters. “Why would police deploy so many officers for a normal demonstration?” he asks. “You won’t intimidate us.”
He says the mob that attacked Hadash lawmaker Ayman Odeh last Saturday at anti-war rally in Ness Ziona, “is, more than anything, similar to the Nazis and to white supremacist groups in the United States,” and accuses the far-right government of “cultivating these mobs.” On the heels of France’s decision to recognize Palestine, Barakeh also says: “We demand that the State of Palestine be declared a sovereign state under occupation.” In addition, addressed the crowd Dr. Anat Matar (Tel-Aviv University), a leading member of Academia for Equality and a war refusenik released in May from military service after two months in jail, Ella Keidar Greenberg, a young communist from Tel-Aviv. Also, on Friday hundreds of people attended smaller anti-war rallies in the central towns of Jaffa and Tira, Jerusalem, Rahat in the Negev and the northern town of Kabul.
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=32870
