WASHINGTON: Thousands of protesters surrounded the White House on Saturday to protest US President Joe Biden’s Israeli war policy, principally the invasion of Rafah.
The protest coincided with the eight-month mark of the onslaught between Israel and Palestine.
It started at Lafayette Park in front of the White House, where protesters, wearing red, surrounded the building with a two-mile-long red banner symbolizing Biden’s “red line” concerning Israel’s invasion of Rafah.
Previously, Biden said that an invasion of Rafah would cross a “red line,” but senior US officials were quick to backtrack on those remarks, saying the president did not set any “red lines” for Israel as it carries out its offensive.
Police tightened the security and put additional public safety measures, including anti-scale fencing, near the White House complex.
“Biden, We Are Your Red Line,” protesters said, urging the president to stop the “genocide” in the Gaza Strip. They also demanded a halt to sending weapons to Israel.
Their banners read: “Genocide Is Our Red Line”, “Biden’s Red Line Was A Lie”, “Hands Off Rafah! Stop The Genocide”, “End All US Aid to Israel”, “Stop Arming Israel”, “Lift the Siege on Gaza Now” and “Arms Embargo on Israel”.
Carrying Palestinian flags, the protesters also chanted slogans against the president, saying: “Biden you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”
Biden is currently on a state visit to France.
The president has faced a wave of protests nationwide regarding his handling of the Gaza conflict.
‘Stop sending arms to Netanyahu’
Rob Stephens demanded that the Biden administration stop sending arms to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I’m demanding that the Biden administration stop sending arms to Netanyahu and stop be more active, and stop the supply of arms and weapons and the genocide that is carrying out against the Palestinian people,” he told Anadolu.
Stephens said he is a son of a survivor of the Holocaust.
“My father helped liberate a concentration camp, and I am here for them because I believe that they would not be proud of what my country has been doing recently with the strong support of Israel,” he said. “I think it’s wrong, and it’s not what America should be doing.”
Maria Lopez-Silvero told Anadolu that she wants the US not to arm Israel in its onslaught against Gaza.
“I am demanding for a state for Palestine — freedom for all Palestinian people and for the United States to stop providing arms to Netanyahu and to Israel because those arms are killing the Palestinians, she said.
Abby Pierce said it was her fourth protest, and Biden does not believe in a “red line.”
“I think that everything that he (Biden) says is just to please people. He wants to fund Israel no matter what. I think that they make money off of the war, and they make money off of Israel, and he doesn’t want to stop. He doesn’t believe in the red line,” she told the Turkish news agency.
Another protestor, Bob Jeremy, urged people to protest the war.
The war “can only end if people, just average people, everyday people, get out here and protest and stand and march and do whatever they can to end this,” Jeremy told Anadolu.
Monica Poll, for her part, said protestors try to show that people in the US stand with Palestine.
“We really want a cease-fire and then end this war in general. I wish he (Biden) would hear this message and understand how much we care. Hopefully, he sees how many people are out here right now and how many people don’t agree with what he’s doing and what the US government in general is doing right now in support of Israel,” Poll added.
Israel has continued its brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7 despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.
More than 36,800 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and over 83,600 others injured, according to local health authorities.
Eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
