Photos: YouTube Screenshots
March 30, 2024 – Protests organized by the Shut It Down for Palestine movement are taking place in dozens of cities across the country today to demand an immediate ceasefire to end the Israeli assault on Gaza and protest the Biden administration’s role as a partner in the genocide. Mass marches, disruptions, rallies and other types of activities will take place nationwide. These actions are part of the global commemoration of Land Day – a tradition dating to 1976 when six Palestinians were massacred while protesting an Israeli plan to carry out large-scale expropriations of Palestinian-owned land.
These actions take place amid deepening international and domestic opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza. Earlier this week, for the first time the United States felt compelled to abstain, rather than veto, a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire. Protesters inside and outside the event disrupted Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton’s $25 million fundraiser in New York CIty. And the International Court of Justice issued another emergency order demanding that Israel stop halting the flow of aid to starving Palestinians.
“We are taking to the streets in huge numbers to send a message to Joe Biden: end all support for Israel now! Blood is on Biden’s hands – he is the one supplying the Israeli war machine with the weapons they use to kill tens of thousands of Palestinians. He claims to want to protect civilians and oppose a Rafah invasion, yet so far refuses to cut off the arms shipments that make Israel’s war possible. But the strength of the people’s movement can force him to reverse this policy,” said Yara Shoufani of the Palestinian Youth Movement.
ANSWER Coalition National Director Brian Becker said, “Mass starvation is an intentional effect of the Israeli siege on Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are on the brink of dying of hunger even though aid trucks are lined up along the border because Israel refuses to allow them in. Schemes like Biden’s “floating pier” are just a stunt to distract from the one thing that could decisively end the humanitarian crisis: an immediate ceasefire and an end to the nearly 20-year-long blockade of Gaza.”
“The genocide taking place today in Gaza is a continuation of over 75 years of Israeli colonization and apartheid,” said Manolo De Los Santos, Executive Director of The People’s Forum, “We are marching on Land Day because we are in solidarity with the struggle for the liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation once and for all. The very existence of Israel is the product of the theft of Palestinian land. But like all colonized people suffering under the oppression of a racist regime, Palestine will be free.”
For more information about the Shut It Down For Palestine movement visit the website: shutitdown4palestine.org.
