Netanyahu effigy burned outside Israeli Embassy as Mexico protesters condemn Gaza war

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set fire to an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outside the Israeli Embassy in Mexico City on Wednesday, marking three years since the start of Israel's war in Gaza.

Protesters burned a piñata depicting Netanyahu alongside a football carrying the logos of companies they accused of supporting the Israeli military.

The demonstration also featured criticism of Israel's military operations in Gaza and the US-backed peace plan.

Ximena Hernandez, a member of Global Movement to Gaza, accused Israel of committing genocide and forcing Palestinians from their homes.

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"Today, we commemorate three years since the escalation of the genocide that the Palestinian people are living in the Gaza Strip and the ethnic displacement, apartheid and ethnic cleansing of all the Palestinian people," Hernandez said.

"Each of us has our own struggles in our territories, and in some way Zionism runs through them too. So it is part not only of Zionism, but of a larger system, and it is something the world is realising," she added.

Gabriela, a Mexico City university representative, also criticised the US-backed Gaza peace plan, accusing Washington and Israel of using it to justify further military action.

"It has been nothing but a farce, and the only thing it has served for is as an instrument to legitimise this barbarity. Because the bombings, the massacres, and the expansion of illegal settlements continue. The terror sweeping West Asia has a first and last name: the Zionist State of Israel and the US empire," Gabriela said.

"We live the consequences of this struggle here in Latin America, where we see how the advance of the far right, as part of the colonialist agenda of Yankee imperialism, and Zionism as a project of the global elite, are closely tied to this offensive," she continued.

The protest took place on the third anniversary of the October 7, 2023, attacks, which killed around 1,200 people in Israel and saw 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel's subsequent military campaign has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health authorities, and left much of the territory in ruins.

The demonstration also comes ahead of Israel's parliamentary election on October 27, the first since the 2023 attacks.

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