In Cincinnati, hundreds clogged a neighborhood once dominated by German immigrants, chanting pro-Palestinian slogans under the watchful eye of police. In San Francisco, thousands filled Civic Center Plaza, many waving Palestinian flags and leaving mementos at an altar to honor those killed in the war in Gaza.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators crowded the streets of American cities on Saturday to denounce the scope and scale of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in response to last month’s terrorist assault by Hamas.
The day’s protests, within sight of the seats of American power in Washington but also in places like New York, Nashville, Cincinnati, Las Vegas and even Orono, Maine, extended and amplified demands for a cease-fire and an end to the siege in Gaza. The demonstrations came a week after vast protests in Asian and European capitals, and a day after the Israeli government appeared to rebuff the United States’ call for “humanitarian pauses” in the bombardment.
But Saturday’s demonstrators demanded far more than that, their chants in Washington thundering along Pennsylvania Avenue, their protest signs filled with messages like “Mourn the dead, fight like hell for the living” and “Let Gaza live!” Beyond a swift end to the siege that is exacting a swelling human toll, they also sought a shutdown of American aid to Israel, blending policy demands with anguish and ambition.
