Tens of thousands of people marched to the White House on Saturday to demand an end to Israel’s ongoing military assault on Gaza.
Hailing from cities across the United States, participants filled the U.S. capital with chants of “Free, free Palestine. Killing children is a crime,” as they carried signs and banners memorializing the over 1,650 Palestinians who have so far been killed— 80 percent of them civilians, according to UN estimates.
Nihad Awad, executive director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told Common Dreams that the crowd numbered approximately 50,000 people, stretched 13 blocks from beginning to end, and included “a huge array of the human race.”
Numerous organizations were represented among them, including MAS Immigrant Justice Center, American Muslims for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the ANSWER Coalition. Immigrant justice demonstrators from an earlier “Not One More Deportation” march joined the rally. Tariq Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian American teenager who was brutally beaten by Israeli police after he was detained in East Jerusalem last month, was included in the crowd.
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