PALESTINE supporters marked the arrival of the new year by staging midnight protests demanding a ceasefire as Israeli bombs continued to rain down on the people of Gaza.

Activists in Manchester, Sheffield and Aberdeen were among those marking the arrival of 2024 with political action instead of traditional festivities.

Their protests followed nationwide demonstrations and rallies on Saturday when thousands of determined campaigners showed there would be no let-up in support for Palestine over the holiday weekend.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) also made a New Year plea to make the next national demonstration for Palestine in London on January 13 “the biggest yet.”

On Sunday in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, campaigners gathered in the city’s Meersbrook Park at 6pm and set up a “Ceasefire Now” camp where remained until 12.30.

Each hour up to midnight they staged a cultural event for Palestine including the reading of Palestinian poems and messages from Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian songs, and at midnight a traditional Palestinian “dabke” dance.

Organiser Johnathan Feldman said the camp included people from Palestine and Britain, people of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths, and no faith: “who on this New Year would like to remind everyone that, while we are wishing each other a happy, peaceful and healthy new year, the people of Gaza are undergoing a genocide at the hands of the Israeli state.

“It is criminal to remain silent in the face of this.”

He said Sunday’s camp was “overwhelmingly a cultural event.”

“Just as Israel is intent on displacing Palestinians physically so are they intent on cultural eradication.

“So these events are important to show the culture lives on with the people.”

The Sheffield campaigners called on Sheffield City Council to declare Sheffield an “Israeli Apartheid Free Zone.

New Year’s Eve protesters in Manchester gathered in St Peter’s Square at 11 pm to see in 2024.

Campaigner Adie Mormech said: “Manchester stood with Palestine on New Year’s Eve honouring and remembering the 20,000-plus Palestinians murdered in the Gaza genocide.

“We join thousands of people around the world answering the call from Palestine to affirm that there are no celebrations while Gaza is facing genocide.

“We read first-hand accounts from Palestinians describing their experience in Gaza. We joined the global call for a ceasefire and justice for Israel’s 75 years of crimes and dispossession against the Palestinians.”

Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine, representing more than a dozen campaign groups, said: “Palestinians will be receiving the new year while some of them are under the bombs, some are struggling for life under the rubble and some are starving to death.

“This is on us to stop!”

In Edinburgh, Palestine supporters began Hogmanay by gathering on Blackford Hill overlooking the city.

On Saturday, campaigners in Manchester and Aberdeen again shut branches of Barclay’s Bank in protest at the bank’s financial involvement in companies supplying weapons to Israel.

The Aberdeen protesters occupied the bank.

In Leeds, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was among speakers at a rally organised by the Leeds Palestine Solidarity Campaign and attended by more than 700 people.

In a New Year appeal Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal called on activists to relaunch their regular protests on Saturday, January 6, and to support the next national protest in London on January 13.

“Right now, British politicians are hoping that we’ve forgotten about Israel’s ongoing attack on Palestinians,” he said.

“They think that 2024 will be business as usual, because public attention will be elsewhere after the holidays.

“It’s up to all of us to show them how wrong they are.”