Morocco: protests and boycott intensify on Palestine Solidarity day

On Solidarity Day with Palestine, thousands of Moroccans took to the streets to reiterate their demands for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the annulment of normalisation with Israel.

"It is time to sever all kinds of relations with the fascist Zionist entity and to respond to the voice of Moroccans that they expressed in million-man marches in Rabat, Tangiers and Casablanca," Jamal El-Asri, a member of the Moroccan Front Against Normalisation, told The New Arab.

Hundreds joined the Pro-Palestine Front's sit-in in Rabat on Wednesday. Facing the Parliament, the crowd chanted for "opening Rafah crossing" and "the fall of the shameful normalisation deal" as they set the Israeli flag on fire.

Similar scenes were witnessed in over twenty cities in the North African kingdom.

In Casablanca, some protesters chose to take their rallies to the front doors of the stores and companies complicit in Israel's illegal settlement.

Facing a Carrefour store in the Yaacoub Mansour neighbourhood, a few members of BDS Morocco tried to stage a sit-in in condemnation of the French retail company's "involvement in war crimes committed by the Israeli regime, settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people."

French retail chain Carrefour signed a partnership with Electra Consumer Products and its subsidiary Yenot Bitan last year, both operating within illegal Israeli settlements.

Amid the heavy presence of the security forces, the BDS activists were not allowed to get closer to the store.

BDS Morocco has long called for an international boycott of the company and the closure of its stores in the North African kingdom.

The ongoing Israeli bombing of Gaza has pushed more Moroccans to join the campaign, with several young Moroccans extending their boycott to all the companies that posted on social media apologetic messages for Tel Aviv's war on the strip.

Since 7 October, Moroccans have rallied weekly for Palestine, echoing the long-staging refusal of normalisation with Israel in the kingdom, making Morocco the fifth country in the world with the most pro-Palestine protests since the start of the Gaza war, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a US-based NGO.

Morocco normalised ties with Israel late in 2020 under the US auspices. Amid the ongoing war, Israeli officials have left the North African state. But Rabat has yet to comment on the current status of its ties with Tel Aviv.