The annual march to commemorate the 1968 Tlatelolco bloodbath of protesting college students in Mexico’s capital has been eclipsed by calls for to convey an finish to Israel’s practically two-year-long genocidal warfare in Gaza.
Protesters marched on Thursday from the Tlatelolco plaza – the place 57 years in the past, Mexican troops attacked college students demanding an finish to Mexico’s militarisation and higher freedoms, leaving a demise toll believed to be within the lots of – to the capital’s central plaza.
However this 12 months, the October 2 March was filled with Palestinian flags and indicators demanding an finish to Israel’s genocidal warfare on Gaza. Israel has killed greater than 66,000 Palestinians and injured no less than 168,000 others since October 7, 2023.
The march comes after Israel threatened Gaza Metropolis’s remaining residents to depart or face the “full pressure” of its floor and aerial assault, with Defence Minister Israel Katz saying that anybody who stayed could be thought-about “terrorists and terror supporters”.
The continual bombardment of Gaza Metropolis has razed the territory’s largest city centre, killing dozens of individuals day by day, destroying quite a few residential buildings and colleges, and forcing tens of hundreds of Palestinians to flee to an unknown destiny to the south, usually whereas being attacked en route.
“We really feel empathy not just for ours, for these our grandparents died for, however for all women and men world wide who’re struggling what at one time we suffered,” Edgar Lopez, a 23-year-old economics pupil, who marched with a Palestinian flag on his again, informed The Related Press information company.
Whereas a lot of the march was peaceable, some teams vandalised storefronts and threw objects, together with Molotov cocktails, on the lots of of police guarding the Nationwide Palace.
Demonstrators and riot police face off throughout a protest commemorating the anniversary of the 1968 Tlatelolco bloodbath, when troopers fired on pupil protesters, in Mexico Metropolis, on October 2, 2025 [Claudia Rosel/AP]
Mexico Metropolis officers estimated the march drew 10,000 individuals, and authorities mentioned about 350 had been masked and performing aggressively.
Journalists with the AP noticed no less than three different journalists attacked by police and protesters, and a police officer cornered and attacked by protesters.
Native media reported no less than six cops had been injured, however authorities didn’t instantly verify that quantity.
In the meantime, a smaller spontaneous protest had damaged out within the capital on Wednesday night time after Israel detained members of the International Sumud Flotilla carrying a symbolic quantity of humanitarian support as they tried to finish the naval blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza since 2009.
Amongst these detained had been six Mexicans.
Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum mentioned earlier on Thursday that her administration had demanded their fast repatriation. Mexico is one in every of dozens of nations to have recognised the State of Palestine.
