After two hours with traffic halted at Praça D. João I, from 8 PM to 10:10 PM, protesters moved to the Aliados, initially blocking both directions until Trindade, including the intersection with Rua Elísio de Melo, and later near Porto City Hall.
It was there that the demonstrators decided to disband and occupy the square in front of the municipality, where nightly vigils for Palestine take place, freeing the vehicle traffic.
Earlier, a driver confronted the protesters, prompting intervention by Public Security Police (PSP) officers monitoring the situation, with a protester alleging she was assaulted by one of the officers.
The protest, called for Thursday at 7 PM in solidarity with the Palestinian people and the detainees from the Global Sumud Flotilla, gathered over a thousand participants in the initial hours.
The crowd in the square chanted slogans like “Long live the struggle of the Palestinian people, Israel is a murderous state,” and chants like “Free Palestine” and “Stop the genocide,” which continued at the Aliados.
Among the approximately thousand demonstrators at Praça D. João I, there were dozens of Palestinian flags and signs calling for freedom for the intercepted flotilla members.
The Global Sumud Flotilla, mostly disrupted, with over 90% of its members detained—443 out of a total of 500—by Israeli forces, retains only the legal support ship “Summertime” in the Mediterranean, following the interception of nearly all vessels as they neared Gaza.
Among the flotilla participants detained by Israeli authorities are four Portuguese citizens: the leader of the Left Bloc, Mariana Mortágua, actress Sofia Aparício, and activists Miguel Duarte and Diogo Chaves.
The ongoing war in Gaza was triggered by attacks on Israel led by the Palestinian extremist group Hamas on October 7, 2023, resulting in about 1,200 deaths and over two hundred hostages.
Israel’s retaliation has led to over 66,000 deaths, the destruction of almost all of Gaza’s infrastructure, and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.
Israel has also enforced a blockade on the delivery of humanitarian aid to the enclave, where around 400 people have already died from malnutrition and hunger, most of them children.
