Protesters called out Biden for his empty threat to cut off support for the assault on Gaza if Israel invaded Rafah.
As the Israel Defense Forces on Saturday killed over 200 more Palestinians in the Gaza Strip while rescuing four hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, thousands of anti-war protesters descended on the White House in Washington, D.C.
The rally marked not only eight months of the war but also called out U.S. President Joe Biden for his seemingly empty threat to cut off American arms and diplomatic support for the Israeli military campaign, which has killed more than 36,800 people and wounded over 83,600 in Hamas-governed Gaza since October.
Biden threatened to end U.S. support for Israel’s war — which has led to a genocide case before the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court prosecutor to seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — if the IDF attacked Rafah, calling it a “red line.”
However, when Israeli forces began assaulting the southern Gaza city to which over a million Palestinians had fled and seized the border crossing with Egypt, further limiting the flow of desperately needed humanitarian aid, the White House claimed the actions didn’t amount to crossing what critics called “the Biden administration’s ever-shifting red lines.”
Protesters in D.C. on Saturday held signs that said, “Genocide is our red line” and “Israel bombs, your taxes pay,” The reported. According to the newspaper:
Aiya, a George Washington University student and a leader of GW Students for Justice in Palestine, said the student activism has “really lit a fire under the Free Palestine movement, because it has pushed the bounds of what we here in the United States and the diaspora are willing to sacrifice.” Before police shut it down last month, hundreds of GWU students set up a pro-Palestinian encampment—one of numerous throughout the country.
Aiya, who did not share a last name for privacy reasons, said students wanted Gazans to know they are “not alone.”
“We say at campus protests, ‘We will not rest till you divest,’ and we mean that. We have been out here tirelessly,” Aiya said.
