Crowds of furious pro-Palestine activists calling for an end to the war in Gaza demonstrated against the arrival of an Israeli cruise ship on another Greek island on Tuesday – the third such protest on Greek islands in the last week.
Protesters on the southern Greek island of Crete unfurled a huge Palestinian flag at the port of Agios Nikolaos and shouted ‘Free, free Palestine’ as the tourists on board the Crown Iris disembarked and left on buses for their tours of the island.
Activists from the sizeable protest, some garbed in keffiyehs, carried posters and placards, accusing Israel of committing genocide and ‘deliberately starving Palestinians’.
The demonstrators clashed with police squads, armed with riot shields and helmets, who were deployed at the pier where the cruise ship was docked and tried to push back the chanting masses.
Officers even used pepper spray at one point to keep the protest in control as scuffles broke out between activists and the police, reported local media.
Four people were detained, local media said. Video showed police leading one man away, his arms cuffed behind his back, as he shouted: ‘Free, free Palestine.’
In another video, a man is led away forcefully by two officers gripping his elbows as a woman watches on disapprovingly, saying: ‘I thought it was freedom of speech.’
Similar scenes unfolded the previous day when the Crown Iris docked in a port on the eastern Greek island of Rhodes, where clashes broke out between riot police and demonstrators condemning Israel’s military conduct in Gaza.
A number of activists were arrested at the rally and groups of officers were photographed restraining others.
There also, the cruise ship’s passengers disembarked for tours of the island, and no violence was reported.
‘The riot police started pushing us and chasing us away from the area,’ one pro-Palestinian organiser said in a statement after the demonstration. ‘We crossed the old city and went to the other side of the port, where there was again a heavy police presence.’
Anti-war protesters on Greece’s Cycladic island of Syros were the first to hold a demonstration against the docking of the Crown Iris, on July 22.
The crowd of about 150 people chanted slogans and carried banners that read ‘Stop the Genocide’ and ‘No a/c in hell’ – a reference to the conditions Palestinians face in the Gaza Strip.
On that occasion, the ship’s roughly 1,700 passengers didn’t disembark and the ship left the island earlier than planned, with the company operating the trip, Israel’s Mano Cruise, saying it had ‘decided in light of the situation in the city of Syros to now sail to another tourist destination’.
Strong security measures had been deployed on Rhodes by Greek authorities in a bid to prevent a repeat of Syros, where the tourists – including 300 to 400 children – were forced away.
Last week’s incident had triggered a phone call by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar to Greek counterpart George Gerapetritis.
Greece is a popular tourist destination for Israelis on package tours and traveling independently, particularly in the summer months.
There are several flights per day between Tel Aviv and Athens, as well as from Israeli airports directly to Greek islands.
Following the unrest in Soros and Rhodes, the police were on high alert when the Israeli tourists arrived at Agios Nikolaos in Crete, with one of the banners greeting tourists reading: ‘Zionism = Fascism.’
Police officers have already made the first arrests, reported local media.
