Children are not targets: Bristol march for Palestine

On Saturday 14 June, Bristol will host a powerful march and rally in remembrance of Palestinian children killed by Israel.

The event is aiming to be an “unflinching demand for justice”. Event organisers are calling on those in power to act in the face of genocide, and are hoping to draw attention to Israel’s targeting of children. 

Marching in Bristol for tens of thousands of children

For the past 20 months, Israel has systematically murdered children, babies, and infants, while the world watched. 

Disturbingly, various people have repeatedly described the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) as “the most humane military force in the world”. Yet, they have stolen the lives of tens of thousands of children in Gaza, along with the youth and innocence of those who survive. Palestinian children are denied even the basic right to a childhood. Israel is forcing them to endure horrors beyond what most adults in the UK could ever imagine.

The march will be led by a banner reading “Children Are Not Targets”. Protestors will fill the streets with chants, noise, and colour. Additionally, organisers are aiming for a “fierce and unapologetic act of solidarity” in tribute to the thousands of children whose lives have been taken, and whose futures have been shattered, through violence and occupation.

Babygrows marked with painted crosshairs and bundles representing infants killed in the genocide will show the public the human cost of this violence.

Crossing moral boundaries

The Palestine Solidarity Movement, from Bournemouth, will join with The Red Line in Bristol. This is a striking visual display symbolising not only the lines crossed by Israel, but also the moral boundary crossed by continued international complicity.

Those marching will carry a life-sized portrait of Hind Rajab, who Israel murdered along with her family.

Aboud, a giant puppet of the Palestinian refugee child it is named after, will also be joining the procession. He stands as a towering reminder of stolen childhoods, forced displacement, and ongoing resistance.

Voices of children will be the focal point of the rally. Local young people will speak and read poems written by Palestinian children, shared through The Hands Up Project. Their words will serve as a deeply moving testimony to survival, grief, and humanity under siege.

The protest will start at 1 pm on College Green. However, from 12 pm, organisers are inviting families to join creative workshops. There will be one for making paper planes, and another for making kites. Protestors will carry these during the procession and serve as symbols of flight, freedom, and the universal dreams of childhood.

A spokesperson from the Bristol Palestine Alliance said:

This is not a silent vigil. This is a collective roar – a refusal to look away while children are being murdered with impunity.

We demand our leaders take action, that arms sales stop, and that this holocaust ends. This march is a call to conscience – a demand for the world to see and remember the children who should never have been made targets. Every child’s life matters. Every silence enables more violence.

We cannot look away. We will not be silent.

Feature image via the Canary