Pro-Palestine protests rocked Athens on Tuesday after the city’s basketball team played the Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv club.
Media reports say that more than 300 people carrying Palestinian flags and banners reading “Hands off Rafah!” gathered outside the Hellenic Parliament building. Police were also forced to fire teargas to prevent a group from trying to gain access to the Egyptian embassy.
Footage shared online suggests that later the same day, other protesters attempted to break into a hotel where a group of Israelis were reportedly staying.
One video shows a loud group, some holding Palestine flags, gathering around the building’s entrance—which they appear to be attempting to breach—and quickly dispersing after the deployment of gas grenades by local police. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League decried the “targeting” of Israeli tourists as “an appalling hate crime.”
Israeli author Hen Mazzig added that “a group of people is being hunted and attacked solely because of the country they come from because the dehumanization of Israelis has been allowed to escalate unchecked.”
Pro-Palestine riots have continued to grow across Europe this week as Israel’s response to the October 7th terror attacks extended into the Gazan city of Rafah.
Athens authorities reported that there had been no known Israeli casualties following the riots, although the intimidatory tone will have been clearly observed.
