Thousands of protesters surrounded the perimeter of the White House in a sea of cloth on Saturday, saying they were drawing a red line for President Biden and calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
On the same day that Gaza officials said at least 210 Palestinians had been killed in a refugee camp, protesters — many of whom had arrived by bus from more than two dozen cities — marched chanting “Free Palestine.” !” while holding signs that read “Genocide is our red line” and “Israel bombs, your taxes pay.” As they marched, they held a seemingly endless strip of red cloth around the entire perimeter.
Biden said last month that he would suspend the delivery of offensive weapons to Israel if they went to population centers in Rafah. But the White House has so far said that Israel had not crossed Biden’s “red line” with his campaign there, angering Saturday’s protesters.
“If Joe Biden’s red line was a fiction… and designed to make us quiet, we’re going to get louder instead,” said Brian Becker, leader of the ANSWER Coalition, one of the march’s organizers. . . “Only we can be the red line against genocide.”
For Mohammad, a Palestinian Youth Movement leader who addressed protesters before the march, it’s personal.
Her aunts and uncles are in Rafah, not far from where an Israeli strike killed dozens of people. in a tent camp. Her parents and other relatives are in northern Gaza. He remembers the first call he received from his relatives after the October 7 Hamas attack that sparked the deadly war.
“They told me, ‘We go to sleep knowing we might not wake up in the morning. The sun rises and we hope Gaza is still there,'” recalled Mohammad, who did not share his last name for security reasons.
Palestinian authorities have estimated that more than 36,000 civilians, many of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, prompting growing international condemnation. Those who felt moved to join the march said they felt they could not remain silent as Palestinian civilians and children continued to die, and as American aid to Israel continued.
Many of those who came were students.
Aiya, a George Washington University student and leader of GW Students for Justice in Palestine, said student activism “has really lit a fire in the Free Palestine movement, because it has pushed the boundaries of what we do here in the United States.” And in the rest of the world”. “The diaspora is willing to sacrifice.” Before police shut it down last month, hundreds of GWU students set up a pro-Palestinian camp, one of many across the country.
Aiya, who did not share a last name for privacy reasons, said the students wanted Gazans to know that “they are not alone.”
“At campus protests we say, ‘We won’t rest until you divest,’ and we mean it. “We have been here tirelessly,” Aiya said. “I mean, how could we get tired when we see the people of Gaza endure literal hell on Earth?”
Shafi Goodwin, 36, a protester defending the red line during the march, said he found student activism on campuses across the country “tremendously inspiring,” prompting him to leave his home in Durham, Carolina. North, at 7:30 am to get on a bus and join the protest in Washington.
“Seeing how students experienced backlash for defending the innocent touched me deeply,” Goodwin said.
Many protesters expressed mixed emotions or disappointment about Biden and the presidential election. In states like Michigan and Minnesota, thousands of voters selected “uncommitted” in their vote for president in the Democratic primary to send a message of disapproval of Biden.
“He chooses to be silent to please Israel,” said Arianna Streeter-Floyd, who took a 20-hour bus ride from Des Moines to join the march.
Leo Delgiacco, 22, who attended the rally with his sister Jonna, said it was “disheartening to know there’s no good option.”
“I’m not going to vote for someone who is committing genocide,” added Jonna, 25. “I don’t want to choose one evil over another.”
A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment in response to messages protesters spread outside the executive mansion on Saturday.
The demonstration and march remained largely peaceful. A D.C. police spokesperson said the agency had not made any arrests, while the U.S. Park Police did not respond to an investigation into the arrests.
Mohammad, leader of the Palestinian Youth Movement, told protesters that he did not want them to feel that their persistent activism had been “in vain,” noting how protesters had closed streets and bridges across the country. His family members who have fled Gaza are asking: “When will we go home? When can I return to Gaza, my dear Gaza? he said.
Some of his relatives moved to Rafah, only for Rafah to fall under Israeli attack, he said. She goes days without hearing from his relatives in Gaza as they lose phone and Internet connections, she said, and many fear they will not see them tomorrow.
“We are not prepared for them to leave,” he said.
Kyle Swenson contributed to this report.
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