Police have praised the behaviour of protesters but admitted they “feared the worst” as about 90,000 people joined the pro-Palestine protest on the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday, dwarfing the numbers that organisers had expected.
A huge number turned up to call for the end of the war in Gaza and to highlight what the United Nations has described as a humanitarian crisis.
Famous faces including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former football star turned activist Craig Foster joined the rally, which organisers had originally been denied permission for.
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Police say organisers had indicated about 10,000 people were expected to turn up, but got almost 10 times that despite torrential rain.
Police had warned they were “scrambling” in the wake of Saturday night’s court decision to allow the rally to go ahead.
Partway through the march, attempts began to try to halt the flow of people onto the bridge.
Original plans to allow the crowds to disperse once they reached North Sydney were abandoned amid fears the train and Metro stations would be overwhelmed.
The marchers were told to stop and turn back over the bridge, which resulted in “confusion”, police said.
It’s understood crowds were so huge, some had not even made it onto the bridge before the decision to halt the march.
Acting Assistant Commissioner Adam Johnson said he “feared the worst”.
“I can honestly say in my 35 years of policing that was a perilous situation,” Johnson said.
“I was worried we were going to have a major incident with loss of life.
”We had more people than I’ve ever seen in a small confined space.
“We were really overwhelmed with numbers.”
He thanked protesters for listening to instructions from geo-targeted texts.
“Very, very good,” Johnson said this morning, when he was asked about the behaviour of the protesters.
“That went a long way to the fact that there wasn’t a serious incident.”
On social media, organisers Palestine Action Group said “too many people” had joined the march and they told people to turn back.
Josh Lees, the organiser of the Palestine Action Group, acknowledged the turnout was bigger than expected but said the protest had been peaceful.
“There was a beautiful, peaceful mass protest without any incidents,” he said.
“The protest was so big that yes we had to manage how people dispersed at the end but this was done in a very safe and happy way.
“Everyone left in a calm fashion, feeling proud of what they’ve done today, emboldened to keep fighting for Palestine, that’s what today was.”
Acting Deputy Commissioner Peter McKenna said police were not opposed to protests, but said the incident showed why they needed more time to plan their policing.
“Today showed us we had to scramble. We had to make snap decisions,” he said.
“It came very close to us almost having a catastrophic situation.
“Gee whiz, I wouldn’t like to try and do this every Sunday at this short notice.”
More than 1000 police officers were deployed to handle the crowds.
The bridge, which closed at 11.45am, began to reopen about 5pm, an hour later than planned.
Some city train stations, including Wynyard and Town Hall, had to be closed after becoming too packed with protesters trying to leave.
At the same time on Sunday, thousands of pro-Palestine protesters were met with a wall of police refusing to let them onto the King Street Bridge in Melbourne.
There were moments of tension during what was a generally peaceful march through the city, though the display was much smaller than in Sydney.
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