Five arrested for inciting racial hatred outside Jewish group’s headquarters, says Met
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Five people have been arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred at a protest outside the office of the Board of Deputies of British Jews in north London, the Metropolitan Police said.
The force said they were detained when a “spontaneous protest” was staged outside the Camden headquarters of the UK’s largest Jewish community group.
Slogans “calling for intifada” were chanted by the group, according to the Met. They remain in custody.
The arrests came as a number of student pro-Palestinian protests were also taking place elsewhere in London three years on from the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken as hostages by the militant group.
Israel responded to the attack by launching a military offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
In a statement following Wednesday morning’s arrests, the Board of Deputies said the group “would not be threatened or intimidated” and thanked police for their “swift” response.
The term intifada, which the Met said was used during the north London protest, came into popular use during the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1987.
Jewish groups have described the term as a call for violence against Jewish people. Pro-Palestinian groups have said it is a call for peaceful resistance to Israel’s occupation.
The Board of Deputies is set to hold a vigil in Richmond Terrace, near Whitehall in central London, later on Wednesday.
Elsewhere in the capital, pro-Palestinian protesters took part in a separate demonstration despite a request by police for the march, which was organised by the University of London Coalition, to be called off.
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