Michael Hernandez
18 February 2024•Update: 19 February 2024
WASHINGTON
More than 1,000 protesters defied freezing temperatures and fierce winds in the US capital Saturday to demand an immediate cease-fire in the besieged Gaza Strip and in hopes of further pressuring the Biden administration to take action.
The group initially gathered in downtown Washington, D.C.'s Chinatown neighborhood before marching down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the US Capitol building.
Chants of "Gaza, Gaza, you will rise, Palestine will never die", "Colonizers, we don't need 'em. What we need is total freedom" and "Up, up with liberation, down down with occupation" filled the air as demonstrators carried out the roughly 1 mile (kilometer) procession.
Police prevented the group from accessing the Capitol grounds as they approached, but rather than close up shop for the day, demonstrators continued a de facto rally at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Third St., NW - one block from the Capitol.
"Over 130 days into Israel's genocidal campaign, we're out here in the streets calling for a cease-fire, as well as a series of other demands, and putting pressure here in the heart of empire to end this genocidal campaign that is US funded and endorsed," Mohammad Qasim, one of the organizers with the Palestinian Youth Movement, told Anadolu.
Steve Crowley, a professor of politics at Oberlin University in Ohio, said he was motivated to come out Saturday due to his "outrage" over the Biden administration's continued supply of weapons to Israel "after this horrific genocide" in Gaza.
"When Israel's carrying out ethnic cleansing in Gaza, instead of stopping it, we are fueling it with more weapons, and at best some mild criticisms," he said. "I think Biden has to wake up and realize if he's running for reelection, and he's losing the support of the people who would ordinarily be behind him. He's going to be in deep trouble. So he needs to wake up. The action -- it needs to happen now."
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. The ensuing Israeli attack has killed at least 28,663 people and caused mass destruction and shortages of necessities. Less than 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.
The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
Hostilities have continued unabated, however, and aid deliveries remain woefully insufficient to address the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
