Anti-Israel activists were set to protest at Antwerp’s Queen Astrid Square near a peripheral Christmas fairground stalls and next to the Jewish quarter on Monday evening.
Weekly pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been held at Antwerp’s Queen Astrid Square on Mondays and Brussels Place de la Bourse on Fridays, leading to overlap with the Winter Wonders and Winter in Antwerp events.
“We need to keep refusing to let impunity and injustice win,” organizer Ahrar Palestine said on Instagram ahead of the Antwerp protest. “Until the clear complicity of our government stops. Until full liberation. Until Palestine is free.”
Last Monday’s protest saw keffiyeh-clad demonstrators waving smoke grenades and Palestinian flags, banging drums and singing.
According to Belgian MP Sam van Rooy, the protests were once held within the bounds of the Christmas market, but were moved next to the central train station and Jewish quarter due to a lack of room to demonstrate.
Van Rooy related that he had warned Antwerp mayor Els van Doesburg that antisemitic incidents would increasingly occur if she increasingly allowed such protests so close to the Jewish quarter.
Protest organizers claim working towards 'justice and liberation'
The last protest in Brussels was on Friday, with the Ahrar group declaring that it was working for justice and liberation.
“Brussels to Gaza, respect existence or expect resistance,” read a banner featured at each of the events.
While protests in Antwerp appear to be in the periphery of the Christmas Market, videos published by organizers have shown activists marching and waving smoke grenades alongside stalls.
Videos posted by Ahrar also showed activists harassing diners at a McDonald’s branch in the Bourse area, waving flags from the other side of windows.