PARIS — More than one million people marched in a unity rally here to denounce terrorism and honour the victims of three attacks in Paris over three days.
No official police estimates have been released on the number of marchers at the rally on Sunday, but media outlets put the crowd at more than one million.
Dozens of world leaders attended, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who marched in the front row with French President Francois Hollande. The two were several marchers apart, with Hollande in the middle. It is the closest the leaders have been seen together in years, according to the New York Times.
There were no speeches at the rally. Marchers carried signs in French reading “Je Suis Charlie,” referring to the satirical magazine where 12 staff members and security forces were killed Jan. 7. Other signs read in French “I am a Jew,” representing the four men killed during an attack Jan. 9 on a kosher supermarket in a Paris suburb. A police officer was also killed by one of the Charlie Hebdo attackers.
Family members of the 17 victims of the three attacks led one section of the march. Christian, Jewish and Muslim community leaders also participated.
Jewish marchers in kippahs and black hats and Muslims in head coverings were noticeable at the march.
Thousands of French soldiers and police secured the march, including snipers on roofs along the march’s route.
In Jerusalem, a solidarity march at City Hall timed to coincide with the Paris march drew about 1,000 marchers.
Also on Sunday, video surfaced showing kosher supermarket shooter Amedy Coulibaly pledging allegiance to the Islamic State and saying that he co-ordinated the attack with Cherif and Said Kouachi, the Charlie Hebdo shooters who were killed Jan.9 by police. The Kouachi brothers had said they were financed by Al Qaeda.
The video was prepared by Coulibaly to be released after the attack.
Coulibaly is now also being connected to the shooting of a jogger on the same day as the attack on the magazine.
