TWO LOCAL groups combined to hold a vigil in Keighley this week for Palestinians killed in the current conflict.

Activists from various cultures held banners and gave out leaflets to raise awareness of the ongoing bloodshed in Gaza.

The gathering on Church Green also highlighted the deaths of thousands of Palestinians over more than 60 years of fighting in the region.

Bradford Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Keighley Friends of Al Aqsa organised the vigil in response to recent Israeli attacks on the Palestinian city of Gaza, which lies within Israel.

The United Nations on Tuesday estimated that almost 600 Palestinians had been killed, a third of them children, in the past fortnight.

The Israeli army said it had attacked more than 3,000 targets in that time in response to rocket attacks from Gaza on its own people.

Keighley woman Jude Midgley, from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said that in the five days between sending out invitations and the vigil itself, the death toll had risen by 300.

She said: “The people in Gaza are trapped and can’t get out. There’s nowhere to go.

“They come out of their houses, they go to their neighbour’s house and that gets bombed. What are they to do?”