Tokyo, August 6 (RHC)-- Japan is marking the 79th anniversary of the U.S. dropping the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing some 140,000 people in a matter of seconds. 

Three days later, on August 9, 1945, the U.S. dropped another atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing an estimated 74,000 people. 

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida spoke on Tuesday.  “Japan, as the only country to have been hit by nuclear weapons during a war, it is our mission to continue to make an effort to realize a world free from nuclear weapons.”

Ahead of the annual Peace Memorial Ceremony in Hiroshima, Palestinian rights protesters gathered to condemn the presence of Israel’s ambassador to Japan amid the war on Gaza. 

Protesters chanted: “Israel is not welcome here in Hiroshima.”