As pro-Palestinian delegates were denied the opportunity to speak at the DNC, Ilhan Omar slammed the US administration for supporting a ceasefire while continuing to provide weapons to Israel.
The four-day-long national convention of the Democratic Party, ending on Thursday with the acceptance speech of Vice President Kamala Harris for the US presidency, resulted on the sideline in the arrest of 74 pro-Palestinian activists, Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said Friday in a press briefing.
Chicago was witness to several protests by pro-Palestinian activists during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) including a demonstration in front of the Israeli Consulate in which thousands of protesters gathered to demand an end to the United States’ support to Israel’s raging war on the Gaza Strip.
“As a result of everything that occurred out there, there were a total of 74 arrests that were around protest situations,” Snelling informed reporters in the presence of Mayor Brandon Johnson.
The Chicago Police Superintendent announced that four people were taken to hospital for “medication problems.”
Kamala Harris, the US Vice President and Democratic Party candidate for the presidential election, reaffirmed her support for what she referred to as Israel’s right to defend itself. https://t.co/vw6jPg3R2n pic.twitter.com/GVB4dpmbvh
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) August 23, 2024
Not Allowed to Speak
As pro-Palestinian delegates were denied the opportunity to speak at the DNC, Ilhan Omar slammed the US administration for supporting a ceasefire while continuing to provide weapons to Israel.
Delegates launched a sit-in outside the DNC on Wednesday night demanding that a Palestinian-American speaker be allowed to take the stage and address the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
“We’ve been making a request of the Democratic National Convention for a Palestinian-American to speak from this stage,” Abbas Alawieh, a delegate from Michigan and member of the Uncommitted National Movement said in a video posted on X on Thursday, the last day of the convention.
Thousands of protesters had taken to the streets of Chicago, ahead of US President Joe Biden’s farewell speech at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night wherein he vowed to keep “working around the clock” to end the war in Gaza.
The protest organizers, under the banner ‘March on the DNC 2024”’ said in a statement on its website that “The Coalition to March on the DNC stands in unconditional solidarity with the Palestinian resistance, and we demand an end to the use of US tax dollars to fund Apartheid Israel’s occupation and genocide in Palestine.”
“Joe Biden and the Democratic Party are Responsible for the Israeli Genocide Against Gaza,” the statement added.
KAMALA HARRIS: I will always stand with Israel's right to defend itself.
📹Pro-Palestine activists try to enter the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to protest the Biden administration's support for Israel's genocide on Gaza.
FOLLOW OUR LIVE BLOG… pic.twitter.com/q1sl4hazjx
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) August 23, 2024
In addition to financial support, the statement said, Biden and the US government “have given their unconditional political support to Apartheid Israel’s genocide.”
Ongoing Genocide
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 40,223 Palestinians have been killed, and 92,981 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
(Anadolu, PC)
