The banner had 20,000 hand-written names and spanned the length of 200 metres
A banner spanning the length of the Senedd displaying the names of 20,000 people killed in Gaza was held up outside the Welsh Parliament.
Protesters wanted Senedd members to pay tribute and stand with them at the event on Wednesday the 13th of March. They also wanted the public to remember the human lives that have been lost.
The protesters gathered in front of the Senedd on the steps just after noon and split into four groups to hold different sections of the 200 metre banner. Each person was dressed in black and several had brought flowers, treating the event as a mass funeral.
One of the protesters, Sumayya Ahmed, gave a speech to the crowd talking about grief and remembering the lives of people who have been killed in the conflict.
“We have not been able to grieve, we have been denied the right the memorialise their names, their stories. We want the Senedd to mention at least one name per Senedd member, per day.”
She has praised the Welsh Government for voting to call for a ceasefire but said that more needed to be done. She said the campaign wished to see Senedd members visiting Gaza to provide aid to those dying of starvation.
In an interview, Mrs Ahmed talked more about the importance of these protests and the impact that the younger generation can have.
“We have an alternative media now and children of yesterday have become young men and women who have opened their eyes to the reality. They now understand more, they can see the context and know that it hasn’t been a recent conflict, this is an ongoing conflict for over 100 years. This generation is ready to take up the responsibility of reversing what has been done.”
Current records show that 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since October. This number does not include bodies buried underneath destroyed homes, according to a press release from Newport Palestine Support campaign who organised the event.
Many people who attended the peaceful protest were not part of this group but were volunteers who heard about the event on social media.
“There have been nearly 40,000 killed in the Palestinian genocide by all of the countries in the world that have endorsed and enabled this.” said Ayesha, one of the volunteers, from Egypt.
She added: “I am horrified by the Egyptian government, i’m horrified by the fact that the Rafah Border isn’t open and that they are not allowing enough aid through and I am deeply ashamed.”
Geoff Cowlyn, a retired law lecturer and solidarity member of a Jewish political group, from Newport, reflected on how events in Palestine remind him of his time in South Africa during apartheid.
“I remember in my youth demonstrating against apartheid in South Africa and I remember the troubles in Northern Ireland and nobody thought at the time that these would come to an end so we will see.”
The campaign also joint with ‘Naming the Dead’ , a Bristol organisation who made the banner and have arranged similar events.
Members of Plaid Cymru held the banner and showed their solidarity with the protestors, including the party leader Rhun ap Iorwerth.
“We have all been horrified by what we have seen over the past months in Gaza, when we see the pain and loss of so many thousands of people. It is a deep injustice.”
Mrs Ahmed has lived in Cardiff for three years and works as a neuroscientist. She spoke about her identity as a British-Palestinian and how she is now unable to visit Palestine.
“My parents are from Palestine, I was born in Jordan and 10 days after, I came to Birmingham, you could say I am from any of these places and in fact I claim all of those identities.
“A lot of my family were in Palestine and my father was trapped outside, this meant that I consider myself to be forcibly displaced. I was born outside of Palestine because my father couldn’t go back in, had he had that opportunity I would have been born in my homeland and it hurts that I can’t go there.”
About 100 people attended the protest and held up the banner. There was a very somber atmosphere, the majority of the event was silent which only broke for singing.
