UK police arrest protesters over ‘intifada’ chants after Bondi Beach attack

Floral tributes are left at the promenade of Bondi Beach in Sydney in honour of the victims of the shooting that took place there on December 14. Photo / David Gray, AFP

UK police have made their first arrests since announcing officers will detain people who publicly chant pro-Palestinian calls to “globalise the intifada”, in a change prompted by Australia’s Bondi Beach attack.

London’s Metropolitan Police said two people “who shouted slogans involving calls for intifada were arrested for racially aggravated public order offences” at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in the British capital.

Officers later made two further arrests for public order offences, while a fifth person was held for obstructing the first arrests, the force added.

It came hours after the Met and police in Manchester announced they would “be more assertive” in policing such protests to counter alleged anti-Semitism and incitement to violence through slogans.

The move follows father-and-son gunmen killing 15 people Sunday at a Hanukkah festival on Sydney’s Bondi Beach and an October attack on a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

“We know communities are concerned about placards and chants such as ‘globalise the intifada’,” the commanders of the Met and Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said in a joint statement.

“Violent acts have taken place, the context has changed – words have meaning and consequence. We will act decisively and make arrests.”

Jewish groups welcomed the announcement, with the UK’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis calling it “an important step towards challenging the hateful rhetoric we have seen on our streets, which has inspired acts of violence and terror”.

But Ben Jamal, from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said in a statement that it infringes on the right to protest.

‘Sickening’

“The statement by the Met and GMP marks another low in the political repression of protest for Palestinian rights,” he added, before the London pro-Palestinian protest his group organised.

The rally was attended by more than 1000 people, according to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Jamal criticised the lack of consultation over the new police stance, arguing “the Arabic word intifada means shaking off or uprising against injustice”.

“It came to prominence during the first intifada which was overwhelmingly marked by peaceful protest that was brutally repressed by the Israeli state,” he said.

The intifada refers to Palestinian uprisings against Israeli occupation. The first raged from 1987 to 1993, while the second flared between 2000 and 2005.

UK police have already stepped up security around the country’s synagogues, Jewish schools and community hubs following this year’s violent incidents.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose wife is Jewish, denounced the weekend gun rampage in Australia as “sickening”, saying it was “an anti-Semitic terrorist attack against Jewish families”.

Chief prosecutor Lionel Idan said Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was “already working closely with police and communities to identify, charge and prosecute antisemitic hate crimes”.

“We will always look at ways we can do more,” he added.

Hate crime referrals and completed prosecutions rose by 17% to 15,561 in the year to June 2025, according to the CPS.

- Agence France-Presse