'Ceasefire now': Protesters link Gaza truce to 2024 US vote

In a massive show of people's power, tens of thousands of pro-Palestine protesters have converged at the Freedom Plaza in Washington DC, in what organisers called the biggest protest of its kind in the United States since Israel's bombardment on besieged Gaza.

ANSWER Coalition, the main organiser of Saturday's gathering, said at least 300,000 protesters joined growing calls for an immediate ceasefire in Israel's war on Gaza and that Washington stop bankrolling Israel's "genocide" in the blockaded Palestinian enclave.

Protesters, not far from the White House — the most important address of the country — came with their keffiyehs, Palestinian flags, drums, placards to record their anger at Gaza's catastrophe and frustration over US government's failure to rein in Israel and its opposition of a permanent truce in Gaza.

For David, an American Jew and an anti-war activist, ceasefire in Gaza has become ever more urgent.

"The more of us calling it [ceasefire], the more of us shouting that Israel cease its genocide in Gaza, the more likely is they will hear us. If we are not out in great numbers, they are never going to listen," said David, co-founder of Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, an advocacy group that backs Palestine's demand for end to Israeli occupation.

He blamed Israeli policies and Zionism for causing "decades of brutality" which he said also gave rise to the resistance from the Palestinians.

"I'm a Jewish person. I am totally anti-Zionist and against the principle of Zionism which is a racist colonial ideology that is responsible for 75 years of brutality and also for producing the resistance against it," he said.

"I just tell people there's nothing anti-Semitic about calling for equality. What's anti-Semitic about saying all people deserve to be treated equally? That's what this movement is about."

Dozens of coffins with Palestinian flags on top were placed at the site to symbolise nearly 9,500 Palestinians who have been killed in the ongoing Israeli bombardment in the blockaded enclave.

"From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," chanted demonstrators as they unfurled enormous Palestinian flag that filled Pennsylvania Avenue, the street leading up to the White House.

Protesters also lined-up dozens of small white body bags with the names of children killed in Gaza. A lone protester near the protest site carried a white shroud splattered with red colour to highlight the mass killings of Palestinian children in indiscriminate Israeli bombardment.

More than 3,700 children have been killed in relentless Israeli strikes on homes, schools, hospitals, mosques and elsewhere, Palestinian officials say.

The crowds chanting "Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!" and "Ceasefire now!" wowed to continue protests and also expressed anger over US government's monetary and military backing to Tel Aviv.

Immediately after Hamas' attacks on Israel on October 7, the US President Joe Biden visited Israel and declared there he is "a Zionist."

Weeks later in White House, Biden announced "if there were not an Israel, we'd have to invent one", a remark that has prompted many Arab Muslims in America to see Biden as too biased in favour of Israel to be a peace-broker in the Middle East's lingering conflict.

US has stopped short of calling for a ceasefire, and instead backed "humanitarian pauses" to allow crucial aid into besieged Gaza.

But protesters, many of them chanting "Biden, Biden you cannot hide, you signed up for genocide," said the "humanitarian pause" is not enough and will only embolden Israel to kill or kick out 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza.

"Gaza's people are being slaughtered by Israeli and American bombs. Israel is committing genocide in Gaza by killing defenceless people," said Nancy Samie, a retired teacher, who had come with her friends.

Samie, once a Democrat, pledged to opt out of voting next year, saying she was disillusioned with President Biden's position on Palestine.

"Biden is complicit in this," she said. "And he will not have my vote in the 2024 election."

"Israel, with the full backing of the US government, is carrying out an unprecedented massacre in Gaza. Thousands of Palestinians are being killed with bombs, bullets and missiles paid for by US tax dollars. This is the latest bloody chapter in the colonial project of Israel, founded with the objective of dispossessing Palestinians from their land," protest organiser ANSWER [Act Now to Stop War and End Racism] said.

ANSWER is known for its massive US antiwar movement opposing the US invasion of Iraq in the months prior to March 19, 2003.

On its website, hundreds of organisations and groups endorsed Saturday's national march.