Around 300 people gathered in an East Lancashire town over the weekend to demand the fighting between Israel and Palestine comes to an end.

Members of the East Lancashire branch of Stop the War Coalition, as well as hundreds from across the county, joined the demonstration on Saturday (January 20) in support of the people of Palestine, and demanded Rossendale and Darwen MP Sir Jake Berry back a Gaza ceasefire.

The rally, at Rawtenstall Market, included speakers from the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) and other anti-war and peace movements, as well as music from local songwriter, activist and passionate Burnley FC supporter, Gerry O’Gorman.

Demonstrators called on Sir Jake to back a ceasefire and condemn the actions of the Israeli state both in Gaza and the West Bank.

Ross Charnock of the East Lancashire branch of StWC said: “The innocent people of Gaza have been bombed relentlessly by the Israeli armed forces 24 hours a day, for over 100 days.

“Over 24,000 Palestinians have now been killed in Gaza – 70 per cent of them children and women.

“Our message to Jake Berry MP is clear – change your position, back a ceasefire and condemn the actions of the Israeli state in Gaza and the West Bank or you won’t get our vote.

 “Rossendale has not seen a demo of this size since StWUK called for protests against the illegal invasion of Iraq.”

Lancashire Telegraph: Some of the demonstrators in Rawtenstall Some of the demonstrators in Rawtenstall (Image: StWC)

The demonstrators marched down Bank Street towards the MP’s office, with the leader of Burnley Council, Afrasiab Anwar, who resigned from Labour over Gaza, taking to the stage as headline speaker.

He said: “What we are seeing is a catastrophe unfolding and it’s being played out in real time.

“As someone who joined the Labour party a number of years ago I joined because I believed in speaking out about injustices across the world, but when we spoke out about the conflict, we realised the party wasn’t for us, as they weren’t willing to listen.

“The very minimum they could do was ask for a ceasefire, and as we can see, war does not bring peace, it brings further conflict.

“From our point of view, we need to be able to speak out.

“[An Imam told me], there are three things we can do – tell people to come and visit Palestine; if they can’t come here, tell them to speak about Palestine; and thirdly, if they can’t get to Palestine and if they can’t speak about Palestine, the very least they can do is pray for them.

“When we made the decision to leave the Labour party, I was sitting there watching some of the things unfolding on our screens, and I thought, in years to come we are going to be standing here remembering this genocide that’s taking place now and my daughter is going to say to me, ‘dad you were in a position to do and say something, what did you do?’

“And my response would have been, ‘I was too scared of Kier Starmer, I was too bothered about protecting my own position’.

“But what it did was take me back to those words of the Imam - under the Labour party we aren’t able to visit Palestine, or speak out, or pray for Palestine, which is why we took the decision to leave the Labour party.

“Now, I’ve spent the last 20 years working on inter-faith relations and community cohesion and a lot of people tried to make out that our decision to leave was because it was a Muslim issue.

“Looking around here today I can tell you this is not a Muslim issue, this is a humanitarian issue, this is about humanity and every single one of us has got to speak out and do what we can.”

Lancashire Telegraph: A demonstrator in Rawtenstall A demonstrator in Rawtenstall (Image: StWC)

There have been several similar protests across East Lancashire since the fighting in Gaza began, and earlier this month, more than 200,000 took to the streets of London calling for a ceasefire.

On October 7, Hamas carried out an attack in Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking hostages. Since then, Israel has killed 24,000, according to the Gaza health ministry, and injured more than 50,000, many of them women and children.

Many pro-Palestine supporters also claim Israel has killed and kidnapped thousands after in the "occupied lands" over a 75-year period.

Since then, the UK and US have carried out air strikes against Houthi bases in Yemen.

The Iran-backed rebel group has repeatedly targeted commercial shipping in the Red Sea in the wake of Israel’s war against Hamas following the October 7 attack.

Sir Jake has been approached for a comment about the rally.