Sawt Falasteen - Thousands protest Israeli siege of Gaza near Venice Film Festival

Organised by left-wing political groups in northeast Italy, the demonstration began in the early evening a few kilometres from the festival where George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Emma Stone have walked the red carpet in recent days.

"The entertainment industry has the advantage of being followed a lot, and so they should take a position on Gaza," Marco Ciotola, a 31-year-old computer scientist from Venice, told AFP at the rally.

"I don't say that everyone needs to say 'genocide', but at least everyone needs to take a position, because this is not a political situation. This is a human situation."

"We all know what is happening and it's not possible that it carries on," said Claudia Poggi, a teacher holding a Palestinian flag as people shouted "Stop the Genocide!" and "Free Palestine".

The Gaza war was one of the main talking points in the lead-up to the festival due to an open letter denouncing the Israeli government and calling on the festival to speak out against the war more clearly.

The letter, drafted by a group called Venice4Palestine, has garnered more than 2,000 signatures from film professionals, including directors Guillermo del Toro and Todd Field, according to organisers.

A similar initiative was organised at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

"The objective of the letter was to bring Gaza and Palestine to the core of the public conversation in Venice and that is what has happened," Venice4Palestine co-founder and director Fabiomassimo Lozzi told AFP.

"We are amazed at the amount of reaction," he added.

"It was like people in our business were just waiting for someone to raise our voice."

- Boycott -

The collective -- but not the open letter -- had also asked the festival to disinvite Israeli actor Gal Gadot and Britain's Gerard Butler over their past support for the Israeli military.

The festival has ruled out such a move -- they are not expected in any case -- but Lozzi defended the proposed boycott.

"I believe that it's justified in the same way I believed about 40 years ago that it was justified boycotting artists who performed in South Africa at the height of the apartheid system," he said.

Israel invaded Gaza nearly two years ago and has killed at least 63,025 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the UN considers reliable.

The United Nations has declared a famine in the territory caused by Israel's blockade on the territory of nearly two million people.

The war was sparked by Hamas a October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

M.AbuKhalil--SF-PST