In the midst of international calls for peace in Gaza, an activist interrupted President Joe Biden’s speech at a national LGBTQ+ organization’s gala, calling for a ceasefire.
Biden spoke at the Human Rights Campaign’s National Dinner this past Saturday, where he gave a speech surveying the state of LGBTQ+ rights across America, including promises from his administration to continue fighting for LGBTQ+ equality at home and abroad. He had just started speaking, however, when an audience member stood and repeatedly yelled, “Let Gaza live! Ceasefire now!”
Biden responded that he couldn’t hear what the protestor was saying and replied, “Whatever you’re saying, I’m going to say thank — I can’t hear you.”
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Gaza, a Palestinian territory, has been under siege since last week in retaliation for Hamas attacks on Israel last weekend. The attacks saw Hamas militants kill over 1,400 people, including 27 Americans, taking an estimated 199 hostages and injuring thousands more. Since then, Israeli military airstrikes on Gaza have killed almost 2,750 Palestinians and wounded 9,700 others, as Reuters reported Monday.
Last Thursday, Israel’s military ordered 1.1 million people in Northern Gaza to evacuate their homes within 24 hours, likely in advance of a ground invasion. The United Nations has called the evacuation warning “a crime against humanity” and a collective punishment that is “prohibited under international humanitarian law.”
“Moving more than one million people across a densely populated warzone to a place with no food, water, or accommodation, when the entire territory is under siege, is extremely dangerous — and in some cases, simply not possible,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Friday, according to CNN.
Biden referenced the situation during his HRC speech, acknowledging both the Israeli “children and grandparents… kidnapped and held hostage by Hamas” and the “humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”
“Innocent Palestinian families — and the vast majority of them have nothing to do with Hamas,” Biden said. “They’re being used as human shields.”
Biden has previously voiced strong support for Israel; in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks, the U.S. sent munitions, aircraft carriers, and fighter jets to aid its military, according to Insider. On Sunday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the Biden administration also plans to push for a new weapons package that would send more aid to Israel and Ukraine. (This is in addition to the nearly $4 billion in military aid the U.S. provides to Israel annually.)
In an interview with 60 Minutes that aired on Sunday night, though, Biden warned that an occupation of Gaza would be “a big mistake,” per the New York Times. “Look, what happened in Gaza, in my view, is Hamas and the extreme elements of Hamas don’t represent all the Palestinian people,” Biden said. “And I think that it would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza again.”
Over the weekend, protestors all over the world marched in support of Palestinians. On Monday, the Jewish group If Not Now mobilized a protest in Washington, DC to block entrances to the White House and demand a ceasefire in Gaza. “We are here to demand ceasefire and a ‘derech acheret’ — a belief that there must be another way forward than the path of senseless violence,” the organization wrote.
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