Around 120 people marched through a town centre in support of Palestinians in Gaza.

The marchers called for an immediate ceasefire and the release of detainees on both sides as they trekked through Gillingham on Saturday.

The protest was organised by the Medway branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, with demonstrators walking from Gillingham Railway Station to the Medway Park sports complex in Mill Road where there were a number of speakers.

They included the Rev Brian Senior, the rector of South Gillingham, who said as a father and grandfather he had “wept many tears” for the victims of the war.

He said: ”I can’t get it out of my head what it must be like for those fathers and grandfathers in Gaza who can’t protect their children and grandchildren.

“We must stand together against this evil.”

Matthew Broadley, one of the organisers, said: “We stopped by the war memorial remembering the dead of the First World War.”

“Something else that everyone remembers about that war was the Christmas truce.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see a Christmas truce in Gaza right now?”

Meanwhile, Kelly Tolhurst, Conservative MP for Rochester and Strood, is one of 56 MPs and Lords to have put their names this week to a letter to Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, calling for the UK to ban Israeli settlers known to have carried out violent attacks on Palestinians on the West Bank from entering Britain.

The letter described Israel as an “occupying power” and condemned the Israeli police and military for allowing the Jewish settlers to carry out violent attacks on Palestinians with impunity.

The MPs said that the mere presence of settlers on the West Bank was itself illegal under international law.

By contrast, the MPs and Lords said that the Israelis had arrested more than 3,000 Palestinians on the West Bank since the conflict began, “often in the most arbitrary manner and without charge”.