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A protester tried to take the sidearm of a Berlin police officer as they attempted to shut down a violent pro-Palestine march through Berlin on Saturday, with police now saying they have launched dozens of criminal investigations into the rally.

A pro-Palestine march through the Kreuzberg district of Berlin on Saturday may have been small with an estimated 720 attendees, but its attendees apparently had an outsized dedication to their cause, with police attacked and 36 criminal investigations launched.

Local newspaper Berliner Kurier states police officers at the demonstration were attacked, had glass bottles thrown at them, with eight injured through the night. It is stated “forbidden slogans” were chanted several times — Germany has strict speech control laws compared to many western states, a legacy of its 20th century experience — prompting police to exclude 95 from the march altogether for antisemitic statements.

02 November 2024, Berlin: Police officers take a participant in a pro-Palestinian demonstration into custody. Several hundred people demonstrated for solidarity with Palestine. Among other things, they demanded an end to the supply of weapons to Israel and an end to the war in the Gaza Strip. Photo: Christophe Gateau/dpa (Photo by Christophe Gateau/picture alliance via Getty Images)

In cases where police arrested protest participants, other marchers attempted to free their compatriots from police custody, Die Welt reports, creating another flashpoint. Eventually, police attempted to shut down the march altogether in the early evening, before its originally stated end time, with many refusing to comply and having to be “pushed and shoved” by officers to get the point across.

Later that evening, around 35 participants of the original protest gathered again and attacked police when told to disperse. One attempted to snatch “an officer’s service weapon”.

Police said in a press conference about the violence on Sunday that they had launched 36 criminal investigations, including “attempted aggravated theft of firearms” — for the would-be pistol snatcher — as well as physical harm, attacks on law officers, aiding and abetting the escape of a prisoner, the use of symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organisations, and incitement to hatred.

Relatively extreme expressions of pro-Palestine sentiment have been an emerging phenomenon in the Germany in the year since the October terrorist attacks in Israel. As previously reported earlier this year one such demonstration in Leipzig attended by Greta Thunberg saw a local journalist dispatched to cover the event followed and beaten, it was claimed, by one of the stewards of the event.

Also this year was an attempt to disrupt an annual remembrance event at German death camp Auschwitz, in what was then occupied Poland, by pro-Palestine activists.

A major pro-Palestine protest in Berlin just days after the Israel attack in 2023 which authorities attempted to ban but which saw hundreds take to the streets and riot in defiance of the order led to dozens of officers being injured. The riot followed the firebombing of a synagogue in Berlin the same day and saw 174 arrests were made and 65 police officers injured, with several vehicles burnt out.