TENS of thousands will march through Londonon Saturday to mark one year since Israel began its genocidal assault on Gaza.

Protesters are demanding that the British government end all arms sales to Israel and impose sanctions to press Tel Aviv to end its attacks on Palestine and now Lebanon, as it looks set to ignite a wider regional war.

The march will leave from Russell Square at midday.

British Palestinian activist Leanne Mohamad, former first minister of Scotland Humza Yousaf, Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos, and MP Jeremy Corbyn are among those scheduled to speak.

Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign which helped to organise the march said: “For months we have been warning that granting Israel impunity for its crimes would not only leave thousands of Palestinian civilians at risk of slaughter, but risk a wider conflagration.

“In the last week we have seen this reality unfold, with Israel launching strikes on Lebanon and other neighbouring states that have killed over 1,000 people, including hundreds of civilians, many of them children. Now we stand on the brink of a major war.”

Mr Jamal said that protesters are marching “because they want the rights of Palestinians to be respected, international law to be implemented without discrimination, and because they want peace.”

A march will also take place in Edinburgh on Saturday, beginning at the Foot of the Mound at midday.

Last month, Foreign Secretary David Lammy finally acknowledged there was a “clear risk” of British arms being used to enable Israel’s war crimes, but chose to suspend only 30 out of 350 export licences to the country.

The suspensions excluded components for F-35 fighter jets, which Israel has used to drop 2,000lb bombs on innocent civilians.

In a statement, Campaign Against the Arms Trade said: “The West’s failure to hold Israel to account for its crimes, and failure to stop the vast supply of weapons, has been the fuel to a fire which has engulfed the region.”

It said that calls for a ceasefire are “meaningless if not backed by consequences,” and noted that Britain “could play a real and significant role” by imposing a full arms embargo and pressing the US and other allies to follow suit.

In a display of blatant hypocrisy, Prime Minister Keir Starmer “utterly condemned” Iran’s missile attacks on Israel on Tuesday, yet remained silent on Tel Aviv’s actions.

Israel has killed at least 41,000 people in Gaza over the last year, although the Lancet estimates the true number could be closer to 186,000, along with 1,000 more in attacks on Lebanon during the past two weeks.

Today, a British surgeon who had volunteered in Gaza spoke out about his experience.

Dr Nizam Mamode, a surgeon from Hampshire who volunteered with Medical Aid for Palestinians for a month in August and September, said that Gaza “looks as if an atomic bomb has dropped.”

“We would have children who’d been shot by drones, children who’d lost limbs from blast injuries, children with single bullet wounds to the head where they’d clearly been deliberately shot, and this just happened day after day.

“Many patients didn’t survive, and many of those we operated on subsequently died.”

Mr Mamode said the targeting of aid and medical workers was “absolutely astonishing” with ambulances being shot at during rescue operations.

“Medical aid is not being let in and there are bizarre restrictions like no soap and shampoo for a million and a half people crammed into this small area.

He added: “I’ve never come across a conflict where people are just penned in and then bombed.

“What’s happened and is still happening in Gaza should not be visited on any other population in the world at all.”

Meanwhile, Israel has continued its brutal aerial bombardment of Lebanon by targeting a residential suburb in south Beirut and another that cut off the main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria.

The new wave of strikes came after Israel warned people to evacuate communities in southern Lebanon that are outside a United Nations-declared buffer zone, as Israel steps up an invasion of its northern neighbour.

The ground invasion launched by the Israelis on Tuesday has led to direct clashes with fighters of the Hezbollah resistance group, which has been exchanging cross-border fire with Israel since the latter invaded Gaza.

This followed a series of Israeli attacks before the invasion that killed some of the group’s most senior members, including its leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib claimed during an interview on CNN on Wednesday that Hezbollah had agreed to a ceasefire hours before Mr Nasrallah was killed by Israel in Beirut.

He said Mr Nasrallah’s agreement to the ceasefire had been communicated to both the United States and France, and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had welcomed the initiative.

Lebanese civilians attempting to flee the bombing have had one escape route cut off as an Israeli air strike led to the closure of the road near the busy Masnaa border crossing with Syria.

Video footage on social media shows two huge craters on each side of the road and people carrying their belongings as they try to make the crossing by foot. 

The conditions facing those who remain in Lebanon are fast deteriorating.

Director-general of the World Health Organisation Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said his organisation’s “medical supplies cannot be delivered due to the almost complete closure of Beirut’s airport.

 “WHO calls on urgent facilitation of flights to deliver health supplies to Lebanon. Lives depend on it!”

Dr Luna Hammad, MSF medical co-ordinator in Lebanon, said: "Families are fleeing their homes in search of safety. Many of them are seeking refuge in underprepared and overcrowded shelters.”

Gheith Bittar, executive director for Oxfam partner Shift — Social Innovation Hub, said more displaced people are arriving by the day but “the shelters are not ready to host the number of displaced people and 629 are already full.”

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived on Friday in Beirut, where he was expected to discuss the war between Israel and Hezbollah with Lebanese officials.

The visit came hours after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised the country’s recent missile bombardment of Israel and said it was ready to do it again if necessary, state TV reported.

Ayatollah Khamenei, in his first appearance as leader at Friday prayers in almost five years, called the missile strike a “shining” job by Iran’s armed forces.

On Tuesday, Iran launched at least 180 missiles at military targets in Israel in response to the killings of Nasrallah and other Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.

Mr Khamenei said in a 40-minute speech to thousands of people at the Mosalla mosque, the main prayer site in Tehran, that the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel nearly a year ago on October 7, 2023, was a legitimate action by the Palestinian people.

The ayatollah’s last appearance at Friday prayers was after the death of Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in 2020 in a US drone strike in Baghdad.