LONDON - A group of public figures, artists and writers including singer Annie Lennox threw their weight Friday behind a call for a stop to Israel's bombing of Gaza, notably urging US president-elect Barack Obama to speak out.
Former London mayor Ken Livingstone and rights activist Bianca Jagger joined campaigners who have staged a week of rallies, culminating in a demonstration Saturday which will include a symbolic shoe protest outside Downing Street.
"I would like to make an appeal to president elect Obama to speak up," said Jagger.
"People throughout the world were hopeful when he was elected and we must appeal to him to ask for the immediate cessation of the bombardment of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip."
Obama has kept a low profile on the Gaza conflict, stressing that there is only one president at a time ahead of his inauguration on January 20.
Jagger also called on the international community to halt the "disproportionate, unlawful use of force by Israel".
Saturday's rally will march past Downing Street, where protestors will leave old shoes for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in the spirit of an Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W. Bush.
Livingstone, who was ousted as London mayor in May, said that in the last few days there has been a ratio of 100 Palestinian deaths to Israelis killed in the Gaza conflict, in its seventh day Friday.
"There is no sense that that can be proportionate," he said, calling Israel "a state built on ethnic cleansing," referring to its creation in May 1948, after which some 700,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes or were expelled.
Livingstone called for the EU to withdraw their ambassadors from Israel to show disapproval of the "slaughter and systematic murder of innocent Arabs".
Former Eurythmics star Lennox added: "A few days after Christmas I came downstairs, put the television on, and saw smoke pyres coming from buildings and I was shocked to the core.
"Because I was thinking as a mother and as a human being, how was this going to be the solution to peace?
"It's a question of human rights, human values that goes beyond Jewish, Muslim, nothing to do with any of that. There has to be a place ultimately where people come to the table," she noted.
Respect MP George Galloway said: "We will be very, very lucky if the explosions taking place in Gaza today don't blow up in our own face at some time in the future," he said.
Jewish comedian Alexei Sayle strongly condemned bombing Gaza, adding that Israel was using the "psychology of the murderer" to justify the attacks.
Deep skepticism darkens hope of Palestinian peace delegates