{"id":83904,"date":"2023-11-27T22:44:22","date_gmt":"2023-11-27T22:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.estaql.com\/us-rights-advocates-launch-hunger-strike-for-israel-hamas-ceasefire-israel-palestine-conflict-news\/"},"modified":"2023-11-27T22:44:22","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T22:44:22","slug":"us-rights-advocates-launch-hunger-strike-for-israel-hamas-ceasefire-israel-palestine-conflict-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/us-rights-advocates-launch-hunger-strike-for-israel-hamas-ceasefire-israel-palestine-conflict-news\/","title":{"rendered":"US rights advocates launch hunger strike for Israel-Hamas ceasefire | Israel-Palestine conflict News"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

US rights advocates launch hunger strike for Israel-Hamas ceasefire | Israel-Palestine conflict News<\/h2>\n

US rights advocates launch hunger strike for Israel-Hamas ceasefire | Israel-Palestine conflict News<\/p>\n

\n

Washington, DC \u2013<\/strong> State lawmakers and Palestinian rights supporters, joined by actor and progressive advocate Cynthia Nixon, have launched a five-day hunger strike outside the White House to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.<\/p>\n

At a news conference on Monday, the activists decried United States President Joe Biden\u2019s role in supporting the Israeli offensive in Gaza and called for an immediate end to the fighting.<\/p>\n

The hunger strike adds to the growing demand for a ceasefire from activists, artists and politicians, as well as staff members working in the US government. But Biden has so far resisted such calls, voicing unwavering support for Israel.<\/p>\n

Biden has also pledged more than $14bn in additional US aid to Israel \u2014 funds that advocates say are contributing to the Israeli violence.<\/p>\n

The protesters at Monday\u2019s event stressed that public opinion polls show that most Americans back a ceasefire. They also underscored the scale of the destruction in Gaza, where more than 14,800 Palestinians have died. United Nations experts have warned that the conflict puts Palestinians \u201cat grave risk of genocide\u201c.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many more Palestinians must be killed before you call for a ceasefire, President Biden? We cannot wait any longer,\u201d said Iman Abid, an organiser with the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR).<\/p>\n

Israel and Hamas declared a four-day truce in the conflict last week, and on Monday, officials announced the pause in fighting would continue for two additional days, to allow for the release of more Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners.<\/p>\n

The hunger-strikers said that the continued pause demonstrates that diplomacy \u2014 not bombs \u2014 can solve the crisis in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Israeli leaders, however, have suggested that they will resume the bombing with more intensity once the truce expires. They have also warned residents from northern Gaza against returning to their homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe area north of the Gaza Strip is a combat zone, and it is forbidden to stay there,\u201d Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said last week.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s hunger strike in Washington, DC, is organised by Palestine solidarity advocates, progressive Jewish groups as well as Arab and Palestinian-American organisations.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what some of the hunger-strikers at the White House had to say:<\/p>\n

\n

Today we begin a hunger strike in front of the White House demanding a permanent ceasefire. pic.twitter.com\/BChpnSJX7z<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Sumaya Awad (@sumayaawad) November 27, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Nixon: \u2018Never again\u2019 means never again \u2013 for anyone<\/h2>\n

Best known for her work in the TV series Sex and the City, Nixon used her speech at Monday\u2019s event to highlight the carnage in Gaza, including the killings of dozens of journalists and UN workers as well as the destruction of entire neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur president\u2019s seeming disregard for the incredible human toll Israel\u2019s far-right government is exacting on innocent civilians does not remotely reflect the desire of the overwhelming majority of Americans,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I would like to make a personal plea to a president \u2014 who has himself experienced such devastating personal loss \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe implore him that this current ceasefire must continue, and we must build off it to begin to negotiate a more permanent peace. We cannot keep letting American tax dollars aid and abet the killing and starvation of millions of Palestinians. \u2018Never again\u2019 means never again \u2014 for anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Delaware lawmaker Madinah Wilson-Anton: Majority of Americans want ceasefire<\/h2>\n

Wilson-Anton, a Muslim American legislator from Biden\u2019s home state of Delaware, said that while she is anxious about abstaining from food for several days, her thoughts are with the people of Gaza who are experiencing a massacre with no choice or end in sight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of Americans are for a permanent ceasefire. And it\u2019s unfortunate that our president and our congressional members are not being responsive to what\u2019s important to Delawareans and Americans from all states,\u201d Wilson-Anton, a Democrat, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so I\u2019m hoping that, this week, we\u2019ll be successful in gaining the ear of our president and of our congressional members, so they can actually start to use their privilege and position to negotiate a ceasefire that is lasting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Delaware Madinah Wilson-Anton, left, stands with other hunger-strikers outside the White House on November 27 [Ali Harb\/Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New York State Representative Zohran Mamdani: Negotiations, not war, freed captives<\/h2>\n

Mamdani hailed the release of Israelis held by Hamas and Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during the truce.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hunger-strike not because we want to. We hunger-strike because we have been forced by this president and by our government\u2019s foreign policy. We hunger-strike because Palestinians have been doubted in life and death, and their experience has been erased.\u201d<\/p>\n

Activist Rana Abdelhamid: Dehumanising rhetoric normalises Palestinian deaths<\/h2>\n

Abdelhamid, a New York organiser, linked the killing of Palestinians in Gaza to a rise in prejudice against Arabs and Muslims in the US. She pointed to Saturday\u2019s shooting of three Palestinian students in a suspected hate crime as an example.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone who has been organising against hate-based violence across this country, I\u2019m fully aware that the violence and the anti-Palestinian rhetoric that we\u2019re seeing abroad is also impacting us here in the United States. Those two things are inextricably linked,\u201d Abdelhamid said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen our elected [officials] and our politicians and our representatives are continuously dehumanising Palestinian people, are normalising Palestinian deaths, we get what we got two days ago. We get three Palestinian students in Vermont being shot for simply wearing a keffiyeh, for simply speaking Arabic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palestinian-American writer and advocate Sumaya Awad: The US is complicit<\/h2>\n

Awad stressed that the US is \u201ccomplicit\u201d in the ongoing violence against Palestinians. She added that the conflict also has\u00a0domestic ramifications in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m Palestinian and I\u2019m a New Yorker. I\u2019m an American and I\u2019m a mother of a 16-month-old, and I\u2019m on hunger strike to illustrate to our government just a sliver, a fragment of what Palestinians are enduring in Gaza every single day,\u201d Awad said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am on hunger strike to demand a permanent ceasefire and to say that we will continue to pressure our government in every way possible to get that permanent ceasefire because we are not just silent observers. We are complicit in what is happening in Palestine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are on hunger strike because what\u2019s happening in Gaza is not something far away that we have nothing to do with. It has real impacts on our lives here in the US.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n