BERLIN, November 8. /TASS/. Germany has had about 450 pro-Palestinian rallies since the escalation of the Middle East conflict, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said.
"That compares with 413 pro-Israeli rallies," she told reporters in Berlin.
She reiterated Germany's solidarity with Israel and spoke out against anti-Semitism.
"The Middle East conflict should not be fought on the streets of Germany," she said.
The minister said the most rallies in support of Palestine took place in the federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Wurttemberg and Hesse. The most violence was reported on the streets of Berlin.
"Jewish lives must never again be jeopardized," Faeser stated. "Every person living in Germany bears this responsibility."
The minister called the attack on Israel by the Palestinian radical group Hamas "the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust."
"Our place in this situation is on the side of Israel, and there is no ‘but’ in that," she said.
The situation in the Middle East sharply escalated following an incursion of Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip into Israel on October 7, accompanied by killings of residents of Israeli settlements near the border and taking hostages, including children, women and elderly people. Hamas regards the attack as a response to Israeli actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Israel has declared a complete siege of the Gaza Strip and has started delivering strikes on that area and parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank. Israel Defense Forces Spokesman Daniel Hagari on October 27 said the ground operation in the Gaza Strip was expanding.