Rally to result in street closures in Rome.

A pro-Palestinian rally is to take place in Rome on Saturday 12 October, with thousands of people expected to march through the streets of the capital.

The demonstration is scheduled to start at Piramide at 15.00 and will result in street closures and traffic restrictions along the route between Piazzale Ostiense and Piazza Vittorio.

Security is expected to be tight at the rally after an unauthorised pro-Palestinian demonstration in Rome last weekend ended with violent clashes between police and a small group of hooded protestors.

At least 34 people were injured, mostly police officers, in violence condemned strongly by Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni.

The protest had been banned by security chiefs who claimed that the timing of the event - two days before the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October last year - risked glorifying the massacres.

Ahead of the banned demonstration on 5 October, interior minister Matteo Piantedosi said that a "very representative" group of Palestinians had accepted the ban and had postponed their rally to the following Saturday.

Yousef Salman, president of the Palestinian community of Rome and Lazio, told news agency ANSA that the event on 12 October would be used "to ask for a ceasefire, a stop to the genocide and the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, and a free Palestine."

In addition to the Palestinian community, numerous groups have given their support to the rally, including the Rome branch of ANPI, Italy's partisan association which preserves the memory of the Resistance movement against Fascism.

"We believe it is necessary to express all our closeness and solidarity to the Palestinian people and all our condemnation and indignation for what has happened and is happening", ANPI said in a statement.

The demonstration comes amid tensions between Italy and Israel. The Italian government on Thursday protested formally to Israel after the headquarters of the UNIFIL peacekeeping mission and two Italian bases in Lebanon came under attack by Israeli forces.

Defence minister Guido Crosetto summoned the Israeli ambassador in Rome and said the attack was neither a mistake nor an accident and "could constitute a war crime".

On Monday Meloni joined various senior Italian government ministers at a commemoration ceremony in Rome's Synagogue in memory of the victims of the 7 October massacre in Israel.