Hundreds of protesters marched to President Biden’s Greenville home Saturday to protest the United States’ ongoing support for Israel as it carries out military action in Gaza.
State Representative Madinah Wilson-Anton was one of the organizers. She shared the protesters’ demands at the Secret Service post in front of the President’s home.
“We come to demand a cease fire now. We demand an end to all military aid to the state of israel. We demand an end to the siege on Gaza. And an end to the occupation. President Biden, you are our president. We demand these things of you,” Wilson-Anton stated.
The protesters also laid white flowers in front of the President’s home, representing the lives of the Palestinian children killed by the bombings carried out in Gaza by Israel.
The march was preceded by a rally, where local Palestinians, social justice leaders, doctors, and other advocates offered their perspectives on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and the opportunities for local action.
Dr. Afnan Albahri is a pediatrician practicing in Delaware who says she wore scrubs and a white hijab to mirror her Palestinian counterparts in Gaza working to save lives with limited resources.
“How can I explain the pain when I clutch my phone in desperation watching chest compressions on a 6 month old stop and a time of death unable to be announced because their 3 year old brother on the same stretcher was now unresponsive? How? How do I explain my translation that my counterparts in Gaza are screaming that they cannot secure an airway because there is so much rubble in it?”
The last 24 hours alone have shown anincrease in attacks on Gaza’s largest hospital. The World Health Organization reported Friday that half of Gaza's 36 hospitals were no longer functioning.
There was also significant Jewish representation at Saturday’s event.
Hope Moser is the former President of Hillel at the University of Delaware. She’s among a group of Jewish people working to create a clear line between Judaism and the State of Israel.
They’ve been present at many of the major protests in the past month, including the march in Washington, D.C. that drew tens of thousands of people to protest outside of the White House.
Saturday, Moser spoke on her experience with birthright. She noted that despite her family living in the US since the early 1900s, she has the right to move to Israel and gain full citizenship. Meanwhile, she says, Palestinians have been violently displaced from their ancestral home since 1948.
“This was not the Judaism I know and love. Not the Judaism where we love our neighbors like ourselves and put justice and peace at the forefront of our existence,” said Moser.
She then took the time to read the names of some of the Palestinians older than the state of Israel who were killed in the past 36 days.
Wilmington native Sarah Jones, a former member of the University of Delaware’s Black Student Union and NAACP, was also among Saturday's protesters
“I’m out here today because the Palestinian struggle is inextricably connected with the Black struggle for liberation and I’m a very firm believer that none of us are free until all of us are free,” Jones explained.
She adds Delawareans have a unique access to their politicians, making it important to use their voices to advocate for what they believe in.
Wilson-Anton echoes that point.
“Delawareans are showing up. Not just today, but we're calling our Congressional Delegation and their phones are overrun. Their phones are overrun with people who are saying the same thing: ‘we want a cease fire, we don't want this genocide to happen on our dime, enough is enough,’” she said.
Saturday's protest drew support from local and regional organizations such as Black Mothers In Power, Delawareans for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace Philadelphia, the Delaware Working Families Party, and the PA Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
