Morocco Protests Surge as Citizens Demand End to Israel Ties Amid Gaza Deaths

From Rabat to Tangier, thousands of Moroccans took to the streets last weekend. They waved Palestinian flags and wore keffiyehs. They also chanted a pro-Palestinian slogan - a sight once rare on the streets of Morocco, but which has become common since October 7. "The resistance in Palestine has freed us from our fear. Now we will not leave the streets until they publicly announce the end of the shameful normalization with the Zionist entity," said Khaled, a protester from the city of Kenitra, near Rabat, where 15,000 protesters gathered in its streets, according to the Moroccan Front against Normalization, one of the local pro-Palestinian movements that organized it.

The anger became strong on Sunday after local media reported the presumed death of four Moroccan citizens in Gaza. Rabat has not yet confirmed this information. The Moroccan embassy in Palestine, quoted by the Telquel media on Monday, November 13, assessed the number of Moroccans wishing to leave the Gaza Strip. They number 614. Last week, a group of 112 Moroccan nationals were able to leave Gaza and cross the Egyptian border via the Rafah border crossing. On the spot, the Moroccan embassy in Palestine says it is coordinating with the Kingdom’s liaison office in Israel and the Moroccan embassy in Egypt for the evacuation of all Moroccans still stranded in the Gaza Strip.

Exasperated, the protesters reiterated calls for the cancellation of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel. The Justice and Development Party (PJD) also joins these calls. At a political meeting held on Sunday in Rabat, the Islamists called for a ceasefire in Gaza. According to them, normalization is a mistake. "Normalization is a mistake we have made. But we say: we have always been, and we will always be, against normalization," said PJD leader Abdelillah Benkirane. For his part, the Palestinian ambassador to Morocco, Jamal Al-Shoubak, one of the main speakers at the meeting, called on King Mohammed VI to "use his influence to obtain a ceasefire in Gaza."

Since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas, more than 1.6 million people have been displaced in the Gaza Strip, or two-thirds of the small territory’s population. In total, 13,000 people, including more than 5,500 children and 3,500 women, have been killed in Israeli bombings on the Gaza Strip, the Hamas government announced on Sunday. In total, 1,200 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since October 7, according to Israeli authorities.