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Mass Antisemitic Rally in Front of Munich Synagogue Calls for Israel’s Eradication
[ILLUSTRATIVE] The exterior of the main synagogue in the German city of Munich. Photo: Reuters/Michaela Rehle.
i24 News – Nearly 4,000 anti-Israel protestors turned up on Saturday in front of the main Munich synagogue demanding the obliteration of the Jewish state, according to German media reports.
A mix of German Muslim, leftist and mainstream Germans appeared at the mass rally, according to the online German news organization NIUS.
Signs were on display declaring “Israel has no respect for Holocaust.”
Am Shabbat ziehen Judenhasser vor die Synagoge in München und skandieren Hassparolen gegen Juden. Die Menschen dort in Angst um ihr Leben. Wie kann es sein, dass Behörden so etwas geschehen lassen? https://t.co/8iijse7TSq pic.twitter.com/EDiaW5hyP7
— Julian Reichelt (@jreichelt) May 18, 2024
One eyewitness told NIUS that “The noise could be heard in the prayer room” in the synagogue. NUIS wrote that according to one eyewitness, “The demonstration was perceived by the Jewish community as threatening.” The eyewitness added, “What the city of Munich has achieved by approving this demonstration is to terrify the Jewish population.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told i24NEWS, “it is beyond an outrage that the local government allowed a pro-Hamas mob to march outside Munich synagogue, especially on the holy day of Shabbat. 4,000 antisemites given government sanction to curse Israel with tropes in front of a Jewish House of prayer! SWC urges State and Federal authorities to protect the Jewish community from antisemites and government officials who approved this attack.”
The Süddeutsche Zeitung paper reported one speaker at the anti-Israel protest rejected Israel’s existence, saying, “we do not recognize the right to exist if it means displacement and oppression. We only recognize the rights of the oppressed.” Israel was termed a “terrorist state” and a “Zionist regime” at the rally.
NIUS reported one of the organizers from Palestine Speaks group equated Zionism with racism. “Together against Israeli fascism,” was changed at the event and reportedly a number of participants brought large keys with them, which is recognized as a symbol for the demand of the return of Palestinians to Israeli territory.
There has been scarce resistance to rising antisemitism in the southern German city of Munich in the state of Bavaria. The commissioner tasked with antisemitism, Ludwig Spaenle, declined to condemn the Bavaria-based giant engineering company Siemens last year after the multinational’s Turkish subsidiary, Siemens AŞ, signed a contract with Turkish state railway TCDD that pledged Siemens in Turkey would boycott Israel. Critics of modern antisemitism have argued the failure to confront BDS antisemitism emboldens anti-Israel and pro-Hamas organizations.
One German activist, however, took the fight to the pro-Hamas students from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich who set up a tent camp against the Jewish state.
Gerald Hetzel, a 27-year-old law student from Passau in Bavaria, set up a screen across from the tent encampment to show footage of Hamas’ brutality and murder spree on October 7.
He told the Bild paper that “I think the camp is massively intimidating and stressful for Jewish students.” He added “It helps the most to show what happened. In the camp there is never any talk about the fact that more than 130 Israeli hostages are still being held in the Gaza Strip.”
Hetzel also oversees the German-Israel Friendship Society (DIG) in Passau. While Hetzel and DIG-Passau engage in energetic opposition to mushrooming hatred of the Jewish state in southern Germany, observers of pro-Israel activity in German say the DIG-Stuttgart in the neighboring state of Baden-Württemberg refuses to call on the mayor of Stuttgart, Frank Nopper, to delete information on funding Hamas via the Palestine Committee Stuttgart on the city’s website.
After i24 reported on Nopper’s failure to combat the pro-Hamas group listed on city’s website, his spokeswoman, Susanne Kaufmann, told i24 “Frank Nopper is not a head of government, but rather mayor of the state capital Stuttgart. He will not ban the Palestine Committee Stuttgart because he is not allowed to do that. The Ministry of the Interior is responsible for banning extremist organizations, see North Rhine-Westphalia. Please direct questions about a possible ban on the Palestine Committee in Stuttgart to the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Interior.”
North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister banned the pro-Hamas group Palestine Solidarity Duisburg last week.
Baden-Württemberg’s Minister of Interior, Thomas Strobl, refused to answer i24 press queries.
Israeli lawyers told i24 that Nopper can delete all postings of NGOs, including Palestine Committee Stuttgart, on the city website to ensure that the city does not enable Palestine Committee Stuttgart to finance the terrorist entities, Hamas and Samidoun. Nopper has refused to scrub the city’s website of NGOs to prevent Hamas and Samidoun terror financing.
The post Mass Antisemitic Rally in Front of Munich Synagogue Calls for Israel’s Eradication first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.