30 May 2024: Hundreds of protesters assembled in front of the White House on Tuesday to voice their opposition to Israel’s recent airstrike on a tent camp in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza. The demonstrators called for the US government to cease funding Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip.
Supported by several pro-Palestine organizations, including the Palestinian Youth Movement, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and Maryland for Palestine, the protesters held banners with messages such as “Free Palestine,” “End All US Funding of Israeli Apartheid,” “All Eyes on Rafah,” and “Stop This Slaughter.”
Chanting slogans like “Stop bombing Rafah now” and “End the occupation now,” the crowd expressed their outrage over the airstrike that killed at least 45 people and wounded nearly 250. The attack targeted a tent camp for displaced Palestinians near the logistics base of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in Tal al-Sultan.
Israel has continued its offensive on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by Hamas on October 7 of the previous year, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. Local health authorities report that since the start of the conflict, nearly 36,100 Palestinians, primarily women and children, have been killed, and over 81,000 have been injured. The prolonged war has left much of Gaza in ruins and exacerbated shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has accused Israel of genocide and recently ordered the country to immediately halt its operations in Rafah. Despite this, Israel has continued its military activities in the area, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge before the recent invasion.
