Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon joined a hunger strike on Monday in front of the White House to demand a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Joined by state lawmakers and Palestinian rights supporters, the actress, who plays Miranda Hobbes in the hit comedy drama, called on President Joe Biden to end his support for Israel’s war on Gaza, in which more than 15,000 people are reported to have died.
Nixon, who previously ran for mayor of New York City in 2018, stood outside the White House carrying a placard that read “Biden, you are starving Gaza. Permanent ceasefire now.”
She introduced herself to the crowd as “the mother of Jewish children, whose grandparents are Holocaust survivors.”
She said: "I've been asked by my son to use any voice I have to affirm as loudly as possible that never again means never again for everyone.”
"In seven weeks Israel has killed more civilians on a tiny strip of land than was killed in 20 years of war in the entire country of Afghanistan.”
"I am sick and tired of people explaining away by saying that civilian casualties are a routine toll of war. There is nothing routine about these figures. There is nothing routine about these deaths.”
Addressing Mr Biden, she added: "I would like to make a personal plea to a president who has, himself, experienced such devastating personal loss, to connect with that empathy for which he is so well known and to look at the children of Gaza and imagine that they were his children."
Nixon is an activist who has been vocal on many issues and is one of the many celebrities who signed the Artists 4 Ceasefire open letter to Biden. Others include Susan Sarandon who was dropped by her agency over comments she made and more recently, Melissa Barrera, who lost her role in Scream 7.
New York State Representative, Zohran Mamdani, said to the crowd: “We are hunger striking for a world where everyone is with their family. And it is a world that can only be made possible through a ceasefire. It is not war that brought us these reunifications. It is negotiations; it is a cessation (of hostilities)."
The five-day hunger strike was launched to coincide with the truce between Hamas and Israeli forces, to facilitate the release of hostages and Palestinian prisoners. Nixon has said she would end her strike on Tuesday to return to New York for work commitments.
Since the truce started on Friday, Hamas has released 69 hostages - 50 Israeli women and children, including some toddlers, as well as 19 foreigners, mainly Thai farmworkers. In return, Israel has released 150 security detainees from its jails, all women and teenagers.
On Monday, the four day truce was extended for two more days following negotiations from Egypt and Qatar.
