Hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators have gathered in the British capital to condemn an event promoting the sale of land and properties in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Demonstrators outside the so-called “Great Israeli Real Estate Event” in London on Sunday shouted slogans and held posters reading, “Stop Israel’s illegal sale of stolen Palestinian land” and “Thou shalt not steal”.
“We’re here today protesting as Palestinians living in London, [to say] that we refuse the selling of our lands, our homelands,” Jeanine Hourani, an organiser with the Palestinian Youth Movement, told Al Jazeera at the rally.
“We know that what is happening today is illegal under international law,” Hourani said.
The atmosphere was tense as dozens of police officers were deployed to the demonstration, where a large group of pro-Israel counter-protesters – some of whom shouted, “Palestine doesn’t exist” – rallied in support of the event.
The Metropolitan Police said 15 people were arrested during the demonstrations “for a range of offences, including public order matters”.
The event, organised by the My Home in Israel real estate agency, drew widespread opposition from human rights activists and politicians across the United Kingdom who urged the British government to stop it happening.
Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory are illegal under international law, and the International Court of Justice ruled in 2024 that Israel’s occupation was unlawful and should end.
Nearly 100 British legislators, including members of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, signed a letter on Friday urging the government to “uphold its obligations under international law” and ensure the event “promoting illegal activities does not proceed”.
Layla Moran, the first British MP of Palestinian descent and one of the letter’s signatories, described the sales as “unacceptable”.
“It is a stain on the British public and the international rule of law that this event has been allowed to go ahead today,” she told Al Jazeera.
“The fact is it should have never gone ahead; the Metropolitan Police should have stopped it and if the laws don’t exist to do that, then we need to move swiftly to put an end to this kind of transaction happening on British soil,” Moran said.
The activist group, Jewish Anti-Zionist Action (JAZA), also denounced the event held in a London synagogue as “unconscionable”.
“That a synagogue would openly engage in enabling the further colonisation of Palestine by giving the event religious and cultural credence is unconscionable,” the group said in a statement.
The UK government did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on Sunday.
In a statement to media outlets earlier this week, a government spokesperson said “Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and harm prospects for a two-state solution”.
“Expansion in the West Bank is wrong. We will be bringing forward updated guidance in the coming days, giving greater clarity to UK businesses on how to avoid ventures which support these illegal settlements,” the statement said, as reported by The Guardian.