Amsterdam mayor dissolves pro-Palestinian protest with signs backing Hamas
Mayor Femke Halsema ended a pro-Palestinian protest in Amsterdam on the third anniversary of the Hamas attack, calling the support for Hamas shown there shocking, though police found it was not illegal.
Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema dissolved a pro-Palestinian demonstration on the Dam on Wednesday evening, 7 October. It was exactly three years after Hamas attacked Israel, killing more than 1,200 people. Israel's military response has since killed an estimated more than 70,000 people in Gaza.
Pro-Palestinian protests were held in public places in several Dutch cities that day. In Amsterdam, an estimated 150 people gathered on the Dam. Demonstrators held a large banner reading "we support Hamas" and another reading "glory to our martyrs, victory to the resistance". Some chanted "long live the 7th of October".
Why it was dissolved
The protest was not dissolved over its message. At 20.15 the mayor ordered it ended because part of the group ignored the instruction to go to the Stopera, the Amsterdam city hall, and took a different route than agreed beforehand. The protesters then left the area.
Some demonstrators who walked on from the Dam wanted to go to an area with many Jewish buildings. Police stopped them from going that way. The group then protested at the door of the Stopera, where an Israeli flag was set on fire.
Police looked at the slogans and banners on the Dam and judged that they did not break the law. Halsema called the expressions of support for Hamas, made near the National Monument, "shocking and distasteful". She said they were not punishable, so intervening on the Dam was not possible. Through a spokesperson she said: "It saddens us that the Dam was used for this on this day."
One organiser said the banners were provocative and that he understood why people used them. He said the Netherlands should see Hamas as a political movement, not a terrorist organisation, and that support for it should not become a crime.