Palestine occupied Sheffield ... for one day

Last Saturday, 12th of May, Sheffield city centre was occupied (legally) by pr0-Palestine activists from all around the North of England. The Palestine North rally was organised by Sheffield PSC in support of the Palestinians and their freedom and return. It had almost everything: A huge rally, Speakers, Dabkeh (Palestinian traditional dancing), Palestinian food, information stalls, Palestinian products stalls, Photo Exhibition, A massive model of the apartheid wall in West Bank. I even got to meet an old lady who just arrived from Palestine and turned out to be from my town and she knew my grandma!

The funniest, yet most irritating, part of the day was the Checkpoint Street Theatre. We all wanted to take part in the role play so we ended up waiting in a very long queue, and to make things worse it started raining heavily! The Israeli soldiers didn't allow us to find a shelter and the progress was deadly slow. The floor was full of fruits and vegetables as they emptied someone's basket and didn't allow him in with his harvested crops. I missed my university exam because the stubborn soldier insisted not to let me into the city with my expired ID card and ordered me to renew my ID in another city, which has been blocked by another checkpoint and no one was allowed in or out for almost three days.

That was just a role play. Reality is far more worse.

Here are some pics from my camera