Pro-Palestine protesters shouted ‘death, death to the IDF’ yesterday as desperate Israeli families waited to be reunited with their kidnapped loved ones.

Despite President Donald Trump securing a ceasefire deal in Gaza and only hours before the first hostages were set to be freed, thousands of demonstrators descended on central London to call for Palestine to ‘resist’.

The angry mob could be heard calling for the eradication of Israeli soldiers and singing the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’.

They also held placards with slogans such as ‘globalise the intifada’ and compared Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.

And, in a sickening display of disrespect, the marchers defaced an RAF memorial by covering it with stickers bearing the Palestinian flag and adorning it with a placard reading: ‘End the siege.’

Yet at one point while the crowd roared, police arrested several pro-Israeli counter-demonstrators who had infiltrated the protest.

A small group of people from Our Fight, a pro-Israeli organisation describing itself as mostly made up of non-Jewish Britons, were seen facing off with protesters while holding signs reading: ‘We stand with Britain’s Jews.’

The Met Police confirmed it had made a ‘small number of arrests’ after breaking up a scuffle between the groups. 

Fourteen arrests were made, including seven for breaching conditions under the Public Order Act. Other arrests were made for offences including supporting a proscribed group and affray.

The demonstration was the 32nd in support of Palestine since October 2023, according to organiser Palestine Solidarity Campaign. It will not stop protesting ‘until Israel’s occupation and apartheid is ended’, it added.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn walked at the front of the crowd across Westminster Bridge, helping to carry a large banner that read ‘National march. Free Palestine’. 

He was seen chanting ‘Palestine will be free’ after a woman with a megaphone shouted ‘Netanyahu you will see’.

He was silent as she led a chant of ‘Keir Starmer you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide’.

Last night cross-bench peer Lord Walney, former adviser to the Government on political violence, said chants of death to the IDF were unacceptable and anti-Semitic. 

He told The Mail on Sunday: ‘We are in an alarming environment where the police and political leaders are downplaying the significance of the hatred of Jewish people.

‘People are using the IDF as a proxy for the Jewish people. They do it because it’s a Jewish army and that makes it anti-Semitic.’

Police may soon be allowed to restrict protests by considering their ‘cumulative impact’.