Pro-Palestine protesters marched through New York City on Monday urging an end to US military aid to Israel and the total siege that could result in the health system’s “total collapse” in the Gaza Strip.
During the protest demonstrators also rallied outside the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, chanting “shame” over its complicity in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
One of the organizers said the cancer center is a “complicit institution” for collaborating with Israeli medical centers.
“Make sure they hear you, they’re in the windows,” she said, addressing the participants in the rally. In response, the demonstrators marching past the center shouted “Shame.”
The rally was organized by the pro-Palestine group Within Our Lifetime (WOL). It took place on Martin Luther King Jr Day, the event that honors the legendary civil rights leader.
“This march is a call to demand an end to the genocide, to end all US aid to Israel, to lift the siege and blockade on Gaza in order to prevent the healthcare system’s total collapse and hundreds of thousands of more deaths from illnesses if the bombs do not kill them first,” the organizers of the Palestinian-led community organization wrote on social media.
An organizer for the WOL explained in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that the hospital has accepted money from pro-Israel billionaires.
“Sloan Kettering accepted a 400 million dollar donation from billionaire Zionist Ken Griffin, the largest in their history. This was after he threatened pro-Palestine student activists at Harvard with revoked job offers. Our medical institutions are not innocent bystanders,” the post said.
Also on Monday, protesters in white coats and medical attire marched to the United Nations headquarters and then to the official residence of the Mayor of New York City, Gracie Mansion as part of “Flood Manhattan for Gaza on MLK Day.”
That comes after the mayor of NYC, Eric Adams, has vocally supported Israel’s war on Gaza.
Chanting slogans such as “Free, free Palestine” and “We are all Palestinian,” the protesters were carrying posters with the names of healthcare workers who lost their lives in Israeli strikes.
Several arrests were made during the protest near Gracie Mansion, according to cops.
Miles away in the US state of Vermont, protesters blocked the parking lot entrances to a weapons manufacturing complex.
They urged the US government to stop arming the Israeli military and called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Since the eruption of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, pro-Palestine protesters have taken to the streets of various cities across the world, demanding an end to the war.
Saturday witnessed the largest pro-Palestine demonstration in the US since the war took place in October.
The protest was part of a global day of rallies that saw similar pro-Palestinian marches in cities such as London, Rome, and Johannesburg marking 100 days of war.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm into the occupied territories in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 24,100 Palestinians, per data provided by the Palestinian Health Ministry.
In a statement on Saturday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said about 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, reported missing, or wounded since 7 October, noting that the number includes those who now have long-term disabilities.
It also estimated that a total of 31,497 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been killed as of January 13.
Of those killed in the Israeli air and artillery attacks on the Strip, 28,951 (92%) were civilians, including 12,345 children, 6,471 women, 295 health personnel, 41 civil defense personnel, and 113 journalists, while 61,079 individuals were injured, hundreds of them critically, it added.
The US and its Western allies have expressed their support for Israel’s war, with Washington going further vetoing UN Security Council resolutions demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.
