Protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza shut down parts of Independence Avenue and demonstrated for several hours in the Cannon House Office Building rotunda Wednesday. More than 300 people were arrested, a Capitol Police spokesperson said around 6:30 p.m., adding that the number could rise.
The protest was organized by two Jewish advocacy groups, Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now, and began at noon on the National Mall before migrating to the Capitol complex.
“We’re here because we’re in an incredible emergency, the worst I’ve seen in my lifetime, where Gaza is being decimated as we speak,” said Rebecca Vilkomerson, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, as chants rang through the echoey rotunda and people were handcuffed and escorted out by Capitol Police.
Vilkomerson estimated roughly 450 protesters had entered Cannon, while a thousand or more trailed down the block outside.
“We are calling for a ceasefire. We are calling for the U.S. government to stop funding the Israeli genocide of Palestinians,” said Caitlin Goldblatt, who traveled from Baltimore to take part in the protest.
Shay, a protester who declined to provide a last name, said more than 400 people in the Cannon rotunda planned to be arrested.
“We want Congress to stop funding war crimes by Israel,” Shay said of the protesters’ goal.
Around 5 p.m. arrests were still being made. In between the Cannon and Longworth House office buildings, a group of protesters stood in a line as officers led them onto a Capitol Police bus. Onlookers cheered, chanting, “Let Gaza live” and “Ceasefire now.”
“A group of protesters are demonstrating inside the Cannon Rotunda. Demonstrations are not allowed inside Congressional Buildings,” Capitol Police wrote Wednesday afternoon in a series of posts on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. “We warned the protestors to stop demonstrating and when they did not comply we began arresting them.”
The protest comes nearly two weeks after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing more than a thousand Israelis and taking close to 200 hostage.
Israel responded with airstrikes in the following days and weeks, killing more than 2,800 Palestinians and injuring close to 10,000, Gaza’s health ministry reported Monday. On Tuesday, an explosion at a hospital in Gaza likely killed hundreds, spurring protests across the Middle East as Palestinian and Israeli officials each blamed the other for the attack.
During a visit to Israel on Wednesday, President Joe Biden said it appeared the attack was caused by a rocket misfired by Palestinian militants. Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., similarly issued a statement Wednesday afternoon stating that, based on information provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee, “we feel confident that the explosion was the result of a failed rocket launch by militant terrorists and not the result of an Israeli airstrike.”
But some progressive Democrats, critical of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian territories and their residents, have pointed to the hospital attack as evidence that Israel is carrying out a genocide against Palestinians and have called for an end to the violence.
Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., announced this week a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. That resolution is supported by Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan; André Carson of Indiana; Summer Lee of Pennsylvania; Delia Ramirez, Jonathan L. Jackson and Jesús “Chuy” García of Illinois; Ilhan Omar of Minnesota; Jamaal Bowman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia M. Velázquez of New York; Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey; and Ayanna S. Presley of Massachusetts.
“Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that,” Tlaib wrote Tuesday on X. “@POTUS this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate. Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many Palestinian Americans and Muslims Americans like me. We will remember where you stood.”
Tlaib, who is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants and is the first Palestinian-American woman elected to Congress, was criticized on Wednesday for refusing to take the post down and again referenced the destruction of the hospital when speaking in front of the crowd of protesters gathered on the National Mall (before it moved toward the Cannon building).
She was joined at the protest by Bush.
“Today we demand that the world and our government don’t turn a blind eye to the collective punishment against Palestinians that we are witnessing, even as we strongly condemn Hamas for the appalling … loss of life,” Bush said.
Rep. Randy Weber, a Texas Republican whose office is near the Cannon rotunda, posted a video to X on Wednesday showing an “I Stand With Israel” banner outside his office that was purportedly pulled down by protesters.
“This is what happens when unrealistic, uneducated people want to support the killing of innocent Israelis, innocent Jews,” Weber said. “They want to come into this Capitol building and wreak havoc. They will tear down and destroy public property because they don’t have a clue what’s going on in the Middle East. … These people should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Republicans like Sen. Tom Cotton quickly tried to draw a comparison between Wednesday’s protesters and those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“DOJ should treat this mob of Hamas supporters the same way they treated grandmothers who wandered into the Capitol on January 6,” Cotton wrote on X.
But the ceasefire protesters — unlike the violent mob that breached police lines and tried to halt the certification of President Joe Biden’s election on Jan. 6, 2021 — did not disrupt a session of Congress or enter the Capitol itself. They passed through security screenings to enter legislative office buildings that are open to the public.
“There was no forced entry or break of protocol,” a Capitol Police spokesperson said.
Three protesters were arrested by Wednesday afternoon for assault on a police officer, and there was property damage outside the building, according to the Capitol Police. The damage incidents are currently being investigated, according to the spokesperson.
Chris Marquette contributed to this report.
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