Orkney and Shetland MP, Alistair Carmichael, joined a group of islanders on Saturday at a vigil urging for an immediate cease fire to the bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces.

In this film by Mike Robertson for The Orkney News some of the 40 people who took part explain their reasons for doing so and their hopes for an ending to the violence.

Although numbers were down on previous weeks, organisers hope that this Saturday’s vigil (9th December) which takes place on the steps of the St Magnus Cathedral between 1 and 2 pm will see more people attending.

The latest update from the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, confirmed rising casualties and devastation amid “heavy Israeli bombardment from air, land and sea”. There are reports of hundreds of fatalities from bombing in southern Gaza over the weekend.  UN humanitarians on Monday said that aid teams had only “extremely limited” movement and access to the north was “now entirely blocked”.

“From the afternoon of (Saturday) 2 December to the afternoon of (Sunday) 3 December, at least 316 people were killed and at least another 664 injured in Gaza,” OCHA’s situation update reported, adding that an Israeli soldier had been reportedly killed in the enclave at the weekend and another had succumbed to wounds sustained previously.

 Director of UNRWA Affairs Thomas White said: “People are pleading for advice on where to find safety. We have nothing to tell them.”

Some pictures from the Orkney vigil on Saturday 2nd December

Fiona Grahame