Kendal peace campaigners displayed roses alongside their placards in Stricklandgate on Saturday.

They said that their roses symbolised a quest for peace and recalled events almost 80 years ago when, on 8 May 1945, the 49 delegates meeting to found the United Nations were each presented with 'a bloom of Peace' and a message of peace from the Secretary of the American Rose Society.

Placards highlighted the need to free the Palestinian people from Israel's military occupation. 

Philip Gilligan from South Lakeland and Lancaster District CND said: "At least 30,000 people, including more than 10,000 children, have been killed in Gaza during the last 6 months, 1.7 million people have been displaced, and 70% of residential buildings have been destroyed. Israel has been driving Palestinians from their homes since 1947, and in recent decades has been imposing a debilitating siege on Gaza which turned the territory into little more than the world’s largest open prison.

"The resulting socioeconomic and health crises have now been catastrophically exacerbated by Israel's vicious onslaught which the International Court of Justice ruled, in January, was capable of falling within the provisions of the Genocide Convention.  Israel’s attacks are grossly disproportionate and have left surviving Gazans at the mercy of disease and starvation. The world needs Israel's onslaught to stop and we trust that roses will remind all people that the first purpose declared in Article 1 of the United Nations Charter was 'to maintain international peace'"

"Israel which has violated 28 resolutions of the United Nations Security Council since 1945 together with all those who supply them with arms or components for arms are clearly working against this purpose. Israel and those complicit in their actions need to be brought under control by the international community as soon as possible."