Hundreds of thousands of people have turned out for a large pro-Palestinian rally in London.

There was heavy police presence in central London's Hyde Park Corner as protesters chanted "free, free Palestine" and "ceasefire now".

It follows similar rallies held yesterday in Sydney and Melbourne, where thousands of protesters took to the streets.

READ MORE: Pedestrian hit by car on the Sydney Harbour Bridge

A spokesperson for London's Metropolitan Police told CNN that an estimated total of 300,000 people attended the demonstration, which coincided with annual Armistice Day commemorations and Veterans Day in the US.

Police said they arrested 82 counter-protesters "to prevent a breach of the peace". They said they had "faced aggression from counter-protesters" who stormed the area "in significant numbers" as the rally was building up.

One pro-Palestinian protester told CNN she was "flabbergasted at the hypocrisy of those supporting Ukraine but not Palestine".

"Some politicians may be on our side, but they are too afraid to speak out," she added.

Another protester said the number of people who had turned out for the march was "inspiring".

"We need to speak out for the voiceless," they added.

READ MORE: Major Australian ports shut after 'cyber security incident'

Far-right scuffle with police

The police had promised to use "all the powers and tactics available to us" to stop the counter-protesters confronting the pro-Palestinian march.

Earlier in the day, a CNN team on the ground heard shouts and observed a heavy police presence as a group of far-right protesters tried to storm the war memorial which had been placed in an exclusion zone for protection.

Far-right organiser Tommy Robinson led a small but noisy demonstration to try and reach the Cenotaph, a symbolic landmark which is located in Whitehall, the London district where the prime minister and government departments reside.

During the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month, the UK has traditionally observed a two-minute silence to commemorate the moment guns fell silent marking the end of World War I in 1918.

Video posted on the ground from the anti-racist group Hope Not Hate showed far-right protestors dressed in black pushing the police lines at various points around Whitehall.

The unrest follows a political row over the pro-Palestinian protests earlier this week when Britain's Home Secretary Suella Braverman went off-script to accuse police of being too lenient on the demonstrators.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had initially attempted to stop the pro-Palestinian protest from going ahead.

READ MORE: Rescuers relief when finding Sunshine Coast plane crash passengers

While later accepting that the march would take place, Sunak stuck to his line that choosing to protest on this particular weekend is "not just disrespectful but offends our heartfelt gratitude to the memory of those who gave so much so that we may live in freedom and peace today."

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the disorder seen at London's Cenotaph on Saturday was a "direct result" of the words of Braverman.

"The scenes of disorder we witnessed by the far-right at the Cenotaph are a direct result of the Home Secretary's words. The police's job has been made much harder," said Khan on social media, adding that London's Metropolitan Police has his "full support to take action against anyone found spreading hate and breaking the law."

READ MORE: Two toddlers dead after being found in car in remote Queensland

Tensions rise across Australia

Pro-Palestine protesters took their movements to Sydney's east yesterday, attempting to block the arrival of a vessel at Port Botany owned by an Israeli trade company.

The move was just one of many recent demonstrations as the Palestinian and Israeli communities in Australia continue to fight for peace in the Middle East.

The group attempted to block the arrival of a vessel owned by shipping line ZIM, with union members joining in on the rally.

The ship itself never entered the port and redirected upon news of the demonstration.

There will be a heavy police presence around Sydney today, with another rally expected.

Meanwhile in Victoria, police were forced to intervene after Israel and Palestine supporters clashed outside a burger shop in Melbourne's south east.

The pro-Palestinian rally held in Caufield South on Friday night, became heated when hundreds of pro-Israel supporters showed up.

– Reported with CNN

Shane Baker and Judith Phillips own the popular vegan café Soulfoods in the suburb of Officer, on the south-eastern outskirts of Melbourne, but they fear they might not have it for much longer.

The couple claim they have lost more than $100,000 since council roadworks blocked the main thoroughfare to their business, causing a dramatic drop in customers.

"It's been hard, it's been devastating, it's been a lot of tears, a lot of upset," Phillips told 9News.

READ MORE: Police use pepper spray to break up Israel and Palestine clash

Access to the café's car park was shut off for more than three months at Tivendale Road, due to roadworks for a new turning lane, with Baker claiming revenue dropped by 50 per cent from the day the roadworks started.

"People physically couldn't get to us [and] everybody's busy and they don't want the hassle, so they've found somewhere else to go," he said.

While access has now reopened, Baker says works have stalled with machinery sitting idle outside the café, which hardly makes for an attractive setting for customers.

READ MORE: Unknown Melburnian an instant multimillionaire after $4 million Powerball win

Baker claims there's been a lack of communications from the local council, who, after he contacted them about the issues says he was told the works were being run by state body VicRoads.

VicRoads in turn bounced him back to Cardinia Shire Council.

READ MORE: Sydney cafe sells single cup of coffee for $1500

While the bureaucratic bodies play tennis with the café owners' inquiries, they continue to lose money, claiming to have lost more than $100,000 since the debacle began.

The couple are already juggling two jobs just to keep the business afloat but fear they'll be forced to close up shop before the road works are finished next March.

"We've put our heart and soul into this. The café has been around a long time and it's quite well known in the area, so it would be absolutely crushing," Phillips said on the idea of closing the business.

The family of five are also facing an uncertain Christmas.

"We've all got children and we can't even afford to give them a little gift," she said.

The couple say they want to be compensated by council for the loss of business.

Cardinia Shire Council said in a statement to 9News that it "has regularly communicated with local businesses to ensure they remained informed throughout construction.

"We have also reduced road closure times and kept the main entrance to the business hub open and accessible throughout the works."

Two other tickets without the Powerball number have each won $333,333.

How a petrolhead found an EV on an eventful cross-country journey.

‘I’m afraid of dying, particularly of cancer. But it’s only because I love life.’

Meet a Raglan entrepreneur bringing a surfie-speak vibe to her endeavours.

Police have spent hours scouring parklands in Adelaide after a stranger allegedly approached a boy during a game of cricket.

Detectives were told the boy managed to get away from the unknown man and raise the alarm with nearby adults at South Terrace on Saturday morning.

It is understood the boy went to the bathroom at about 9.30am when he was allegedly approached by the man.

READ MORE: Two toddlers dead after being found in unused car in remote Queensland town

The toilet block was metres from the cricket pitch and next to a playground full of young families.

"It's the last thing on your mind, kids are playing, it's such a safe area, such a safe place," one parent told 9News.

"You can't even imagine that something like this would happen."

READ MORE: Rescuers relief when finding Sunshine Coast plane crash passengers

Police and police dogs searched the parklands but were not able to locate the suspect, who is described as Caucasian and disheveled looking with an orange beard and dirty straight hair in a mullet.

Detectives are speaking with witnesses and collecting evidence as investigations continue.

Thousands of Palestinians sheltering from the Israel-Hamas war at Gaza City's main hospital fled south on Friday after several reported strikes in and around the compound overnight.

They joined a growing exodus of people escaping intense urban fighting in the north — including near other hospitals — as Gaza officials said the territory's death toll surpassed 11,000.

The search for safety across the besieged Gaza Strip has grown desperate as Israel intensified its assault on the territory's largest city.

READ MORE: Two toddlers dead after being found in unused car in remote Queensland town

The Israeli army says Hamas' military infrastructure is based amid Gaza City's hospitals and neighborhoods, and that it has set up its main command centre in and under the largest hospital, Shifa — claims the militant group and Shifa staff deny.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after its deadly October 7 surprise incursion, which killed at least 1200.

More than 100,000 Palestinians have fled south over the past two days, according to Israel, but they still face bombardment and dire conditions. 

Reported strikes on or near at least four hospitals in northern Gaza overnight underscored the danger for tens of thousands more who had crowded into the facilities, believing they would be safe.

Battles around hospitals

Early on Friday, at least three strikes over several hours hit the courtyard and the obstetrics department of Shifa Hospital, according to Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesperson at the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

A video of the courtyard recorded the sound of incoming fire waking people in makeshift shelters, followed by shouts for an ambulance. In the blood-spattered courtyard, one man writhed, screaming on the ground, his leg apparently severed.

Al-Qidra blamed the attack on Israel, a claim that could not be independently verified. 

The Israeli army said one strike at Shifa was the result of a misfire by militants targeting its troops nearby.

For weeks, tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians — reaching as many 60,000 this week, according to the Health Ministry — have been sheltering in the Shifa complex.

READ MORE: Airline to honour plane tickets accidentally sold for $2

The overnight strikes triggered a mass exodus of the displaced. 

At about 10am, large numbers packed up their belongings and began walking toward the south, five people who were among those who left told The Associated Press.

Al-Qidra told the Qatar-based satellite news network Al-Jazeera that more than 30,000 displaced people, medical workers and patients remain in the hospital.

Mainly those who could not walk or did not know where to go remained, said Wafaa abu Hajajj, a journalist who arrived in the south after leaving the hospital on Friday.

"The strikes were hoping to scare people and it worked. … It became too much," said 32-year-old Haneen Abu Awda, who had been at Shifa being treated for wounds from an earlier strike on his house.

At the same time, Shifa has been overwhelmed by thousands of wounded, even as it operates with minimal power and medical supplies.

In video released on Friday by the Gaza Health Ministry, bodies of limp children are seen on stretchers across blood-stained floors in the hospital, some dead, some barely breathing. 

Other patients were strewn around the floor, unable to be treated for lack of supplies. One man is seen gasping for air.

The director of Shifa, Mohammed Abu Selmia, said Israel demanded the facility be evacuated, but he said there was nowhere for such a large number of patients to go.

"Where are we going to evacuate them?" he said, speaking to Al Jazeera television.

The Health Ministry said one person had been killed at Shifa and several were wounded. Another strike near the Nasr Medical Centre killed two people, according to the ministry. Abu Selmia said at least 25 people were killed when a strike hit a Gaza City school where people were sheltered inside.

The strike on Nasr forced the shutdown of its children's hospital, the only remaining specialised pediatric care in north Gaza, said World Health Organisation spokesperson Margaret Harris. 

She said it was not known what happened to patients there, including children receiving dialysis and on life support — "things that you cannot possibly evacuate them safely with."

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said Israel is "aware of the sensitivity" of hospitals and that forces were closing in on them slowly. 

Israel "does not fire on hospitals," he said, but if militants are seen firing from them "we will do what we need to do" and kill them.

Israel has produced video that it says is evidence that Hamas uses not only hospitals, but schools and mosques as well, as cover for military activities.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said on multiple occasions that Hamas uses civilians as "human shields,'' while stressing that this does not give Israel free rein to target buildings where militants are hiding among civilians. 

He has pointed to international humanitarian law, which states that protection of civilians and hospitals, schools, and homes is paramount.

Civilians flee south

Tens of thousands of new evacuees from the north, some from Shifa, flowed down Salah al-Din road — the central spine running the length of the Gaza Strip — and reached the central city of Deir al-Balah on Friday. 

With no fuel for vehicles, the crowds walked for hours as explosions echoed a short distance away. Among them were wounded and older people.

They arrived hungry, exhausted and with a stew of emotions: relief, rage, and despair.

Reem Asant, 50, described seeing bodies on the streets as he and others made their way out of Gaza City, trying to avoid shelling.

"We're talking about children killed in a hospital," shouted one man, Abu Yousef. 

"Hundreds of women killed every day. Houses collapsing on the heads of civilians. … Where are human rights? Where is the United Nations? Where is the United States? Where is the International Criminal Court? Where is the entire world?"

The Israeli military announced an expanded six-hour window on Friday for civilians to escape northern Gaza along Salah al-Din, the route used since last weekend. 

It also announced the opening of a second route, along the coastal road, after an agreement announced by the White House a day earlier.

More than two-thirds of Gaza's population of 2.3 million have fled their homes since the war began. Israel estimates that more than 850,000 of the 1.1 million people in northern Gaza have left, according to military spokesman Jonathan Conricus.

Rising death tolls

More than 11,070 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. 

Another 2650 people have been reported missing.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that "far too many" Palestinians have died and suffered.

While recent Israeli steps to try to minimise civilian harm are positive, he said, they are not enough.

Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf told U.S. lawmakers this week that it was "very possible" the death toll was even higher than the Gaza Health Ministry's tally.

At least 1200 people have been killed in Israel, mainly in the initial Hamas attack, and 41 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began, Israeli officials say. 

The Foreign Ministry had previously estimated the civilian death toll at 1400, and gave no reason on Friday for the revision.

An Israeli official told The Associated Press that the number had been changed after a painstaking weeks-long process to identify bodies, many of which were mutilated or burned in the Hamas rampage. 

The final death toll could still change, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal announcement.

Nearly 240 people abducted by Hamas from Israel remain captive.

Palestinian militants have continued to fire rockets into Israel, and an attack on Tel Aviv wounded at least two people on Friday, said Yossi Elkabetz, a paramedic with Israel's rescue services. Hamas claimed credit.

About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have traded fire repeatedly.

His journey living with dementia was lovingly shared with the world.

Do you treat your pet like a person? Then you’re setting yourself, and them, for failure.