A fight at the opera as performer unfurls Palestine flag on stage

London: An opera performer has unfurled a Palestinian flag on stage at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, hours after British police arrested more than 100 protesters for supporting a banned group that has dramatically escalated the activism over Gaza.

The cast member fought off an attendant who tried to stop him standing silently on stage with the Palestinian flag during the curtain calls at the end of Il Trovatore at London’s most prestigious opera theatre.

A photo posted on X showing a cast member at the Royal Opera House in London holding a Palestinian flag during a curtain call. Credit: X/Stephen Ratcliffe 

The scene – similar to a protest at the Sydney Theatre Company in 2023 – triggered headlines as some audience members said displaying of the flag was not welcomed.

“Extraordinary scenes at the Royal Opera House tonight,” one posted on social media. “During the curtain call for Il Trovatore one of the background artists came on stage waving a Palestine flag. Just stood there, no bowing or shouting. Someone off stage kept trying to take it off him. Incredible.”

Another said on X that the protester responded aggressively when a stage manager tried to remove the flag. “The audience reaction did not seem positive,” she posted.

“It’s not clear what this achieved other than discourtesy to the audience, the rest of the cast and the crew. But I don’t imagine the person concerned will see it that way.”

The Sydney Theatre Company suffered months of internal dispute, the resignation of several board members and a media firestorm after some of its actors wore keffiyeh scarves to express their support for Palestine at the end of their performance of The Seagull in November 2023.

The protest at Covent Garden came on the closing night or Il Trovatore. The Royal Ballet and Opera made no comment on whether there would be any action taken against the cast member, whose identity was not disclosed.

“The display of the flag was an unauthorised action by the artist. It was not approved by the Royal Ballet and Opera and is a wholly inappropriate act,” said a spokesperson for the company.

The London protest came at the end of a day of dramatic protests near the UK Parliament when police arrested some of those involved for expressly supporting a group proscribed as a terrorist organisation.

Waving placards reading “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action,” demonstrators also gathered in Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol, Londonderry and Truro on Saturday, local time.

A supporter of Palestine Action is arrested in Parliament Square in London on Saturday.Credit: Getty Images

The UK parliament voted to proscribe the group, Palestine Action, by 358 to 26 votes on July 2 after the government decided it should be branded a terrorist group.

Palestine Action members broke into a Royal Air Force base at Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on June 20 to protest British military support for Israel’s war with Hamas. The activists sprayed red paint into the jet engines of two huge tanker planes and caused further damage with crowbars.

Membership of the group or support for its actions are punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Police announced an increased presence in central London ahead of the Saturday protests, saying they would protect the right to peaceful protest but would act swiftly if demonstrators violated the law.

“Those who see this as an opportunity to test the limits of the law by expressing support for Palestine Action, whether at a standalone protest or as part of the Palestine Coalition protest, will likely be committing an offence and will very likely be arrested,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan said in a statement on Thursday.

Supporters of Palestine Action are challenging the ban, with the High Court in London scheduled to consider the case on Monday, according to the campaign group Defend Our Juries, which organised Saturday’s protests.

Almost 100 protesters were arrested around the country on Saturday, Defend Our Juries said in a statement.

In London, police officers surrounded demonstrators who had gathered at the statue of Mahatma Gandhi that stands in a park across the street from the Houses of Parliament. Officers confiscated placards and searched the bags of those arrested.

In the capital, the Metropolitan Police said 55 people had been arrested in Parliament Square for displaying placards in support of Palestine Action, London’s The Telegraph reported. The force said they were arrested under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

It later added that by 4pm, a further 10 people had been arrested within the main Palestine Coalition march, bringing the total to 65 in London.

The Telegraph reported that pro-Israel counter-protesters chanted “there is no genocide” at thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, with one activist shouting: “You use genocide as an excuse for your hatred for the Jewish state.”

People took part in a March for Palestine, crossing Westminster Bridge in London on Saturday.Credit: Getty Images

They held signs that read “There is no genocide – but there are 50 hostages still captive”, and were met with shouts of “fascist” and “f--- your Jewish state” by some pro-Palestinian protesters.

The Telegraph also reported that eight people were arrested on the steps of Truro Cathedral in Cornwall. Defend Our Juries said one of those arrested was Deborah Hinton, an 81-year-old former magistrate. Video posted online showed police carrying an elderly man away from the Truro demonstration as he shouted, “I oppose genocide.”

Critics of the protests described them as antisemitic.

“These chants just show how thin the veneer is and why they fixate on Israel. The fact is that they hate the idea of a Jewish state existing because they cannot stand the idea of Jews having self-determination,” a spokesman for the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism told the Telegraph.

Relatives of Palestinians killed near an aid distribution centre mourn over their bodies in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on Saturday.Credit: AP

“Palestine Action has always been an extreme and hateful organisation and, rather than arresting and releasing their supporters, they must now face the full force of the law.”

In Gaza, at least 36 people were killed by Israeli fire while they were on their way to an aid distribution site at dawn on Saturday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

The Israeli military said it had fired warning shots at suspects who approached its troops after they did not heed calls to stop, about a kilometre away from an aid distribution site that was not active at the time.

Gaza resident Mohammed al-Khalidi said he was in the group approaching the site and heard no warnings before the firing began.

Supporters of Palestine Action holding signs are arrested.Credit: Getty Images

“We thought they came out to organise us so we can get aid, suddenly (I) saw the jeeps coming from one side, and the tanks from the other and started shooting at us,” he said.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-backed group which runs the aid site, said there were no incidents or fatalities there on Saturday and that it had repeatedly warned people not to travel to its distribution points in the dark.

“The reported IDF (Israel Defence Forces) activity resulting in fatalities occurred hours before our sites opened, and our understanding is most of the casualties occurred several kilometres away from the nearest GHF site,” it said.

The Israeli military said it was reviewing the incident.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 2023, killing 1200 people, mostly civilians and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza.

The Israeli military campaign against Hamas in Gaza has since killed around 58,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians according to health officials, displaced almost the entire population and plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis, leaving much of the territory in ruins.

Israel and Hamas are engaged in indirect talks in Doha aimed at reaching a US-proposed 60-day ceasefire and a hostage deal mediated by Egypt and Qatar, though there has been no sign of any imminent breakthrough. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages in Gaza are believed to still be alive.

With AP, Reuters

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