WASHINGTON: Protesters against the Gaza war held a “die-in” across from Lafayette Park and the White House on Thursday as President Joe Biden met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The protesters poured red liquid onto the street, saying it symbolized the blood of those killed in Gaza. They chanted, “Arrest Netanyahu,” and brought in an effigy of Netanyahu with blood on its hands and wearing an orange jumpsuit. The jumpsuit reads, “Wanted for crimes against humanity.”
More than 39,000 people have died in Gaza since the start of the war in October. Dozens of Israeli hostages remain in Hamas captivity.
In an address to Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu defended Israel’s conduct during the war, as thousands of demonstrators massed near the Capitol, marching through city streets carrying Palestinian flags and calling for Netanyahu’s arrest.
Outside Washington’s Union Station, protesters removed American flags and hoisted Palestinian ones in their place to massive cheers in the crowd. They sprayed graffiti on a monument to Christopher Columbus.
In a statement Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, spoke strongly about the protesters’ actions.
“Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent, and we must not tolerate it in our nation,” she said. “I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way.”
The number of protesters Thursday was significantly smaller than the day before.
Hazami Barmada, who described herself as a grassroots activist, spoke through a megaphone of Biden’s decision not to see reelection and to pass the baton to Harris.
“Biden did not voluntarily leave the race, Joe Biden was pushed out of the race,” she said. “And Kamala Harris still needs to prove her humanity” before earning the trust of pro-Palestinian voters.
“I’m not going to give you my vote until you show you share the ideals that the Democratic Party is supposed to believe in,” she said.
At one point, a young man with an Israeli flag draped over his shoulders walked into the middle of the protest circle and posed for the journalists’ cameras as the crowd jeered.
Police worked to keep the two sides apart.
As police led the man away — he wasn’t detained — Barmada shouted, “See, they even want to occupy our protests. Even our land isn’t enough!”
As police cleared the way, the protesters later marched through city streets toward the National Mall.