Protesters will march past the US embassy in Grosvenor Square before ending at Hyde Park with a rally. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA
Some 20,000 people are marching through central London on Saturday to call for an end to the conflict in Gaza and a ban on UK arms exports to Israel.
The protest, organised by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War, set off from Oxford Circus at 1pm and will march past the US embassy in Grosvenor Square before ending at Hyde Park with a rally. Speakers including George Galloway and Diane Abbott will address the protesters.
The march is being held as a public appeal for funds to help the victims of Israel's attacks on Gaza raise more than £4.5m in less than 24 hours.
The Disasters Emergency Committee launched its Gaza Crisis Appeal on Friday night on all major UK television networks. The Department for International Development has matched the first £2m donated by the public pound-for-pound.
The funds will allow the committee's member agencies, such as Oxfam and the British Red Cross, to help the hundreds of thousands of Gazans needing of clean water, food, shelter, medical treatment and psychological support.
Saleh Saeed, DEC chief executive, said that the total was a testament to the public's generosity: "The funds are desperately needed, with ongoing fighting in Gaza creating an unbearable situation for families and children. Despite the end of the ceasefire, aid is getting through ... but with the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, they urgently need more money to scale up their life-saving work."
Israel renewed attacks on Gaza on Saturday, with fighter jets carrying out 30 air strikes, killing five Palestinians, after militants fired six rockets into the Jewish state.
The most recent ceasefire ended on Friday morning, but combat has not resumed with the same intensity, feeding hopes for a new truce.
A US State Department spokesperson said it hoped that all parties would agree to another ceasefire on Saturday.
Pressure group Peace Now has called on supporters to rally on Saturday night in Tel Aviv against the conflict and to call for a diplomatic solution.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Office minister who resigned this week in protest over the government's "morally indefensible" position on the Gaza conflict said Britain's approach had been flawed for some time.
Baroness Warsi told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that her objections went beyond David Cameron's refusal to condemn Israel over the civilian death toll, which has reached almost 1,900.
Repeating her demand for an immediate suspension of arms exports to Israel, Warsi said there was no clear commitment from Britain to lead the international effort to keep both sides accountable.
"Our language was not there. It was lagging behind. I don't think it was just words that would have stopped me from doing what I did. I think it was a combination of issues. It was the language that we were using; I think it was our lack of support for international justice and accountability for the crimes that had been committed."
The Conservative peer said the government needed to "move towards a Middle East policy that is in the long term sustainable" and she cited the UK's decision to abstain when the UN general assembly voted in November 2012 to recognise a Palestinian state as symptomatic of the problems.
"There is no point in us talking about a two-state solution if we don't do the simple things like recognising Palestine in the way that the majority of the world has at the UN," she added.
Warsi dismissed complaints that she had failed to condemn thousands of rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas, or the actions of Islamic extremists in Iraq.
Her resignation meant she could "live with myself", and she hoped it would bring together a "broad coalition" to address the issues behind the conflict.
On Friday night, Labour increased pressure on the government to suspend arms exports to Israel as shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander called for the publication of a Whitehall review of existing licences.
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