Several hundred Palestine supporters marched through Center City Saturday to condemn the death toll of the Israel-Hamas war and demand an immediate cease-fire.
Protesters noted Friday was International Women’s Day and decried the hardship and loss of life suffered by women and children in the Gaza Strip during the five-month conflict.
More than 30,000 Palestinians have died during the war, including 12,300 children and 8,400 women, the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said two weeks ago. Two mothers have been killed in the territory every hour since fighting began, the United Nations estimated in January.
A speaker at the start of the demonstration on Rittenhouse Square said women in Gaza are undergoing C-sections without anesthesia and hemorrhaging to death after being forced to deliver at home, due to the destruction of most of the territory’s hospitals in Israeli airstrikes.
“There are no words to describe the level of dehumanization, humiliation and injustice,” said Nayla Labban, a Penn Medicine gynecologist who is Palestinian.
Palestine supporters have held several demonstrations in Philadelphia since Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, killing more than 1,100 and taking 253 hostages, according to Israeli estimates. A similar rally drew several thousand to Center City a month ago.
Protesters came from across the region Saturday afternoon—some as far as upstate New York—to march through the rainy Philadelphia streets and chant alongside megaphone-wielding activists.
“I’m just completely appalled by what Israel is carrying out, especially in the name of the Jewish people,” said Nathan Tabak, who is Jewish and recently moved to Philadelphia from Brooklyn. “The most important thing I can do is to be in solidarity with the Palestinians who are being slaughtered and starved to death in Gaza right now.”
He said the Biden administration should stop sending weapons to Israel and he hoped actions, like the rally, could impact U.S. policy.
“Anything that helps keep people’s attention to what is going on, to not forget about the atrocities that Israel is committing, is important and worthwhile,” he said.
Katherine Kiefer Stark, a dancer from West Philly, criticized the U.S. plan to build a pier on the Gaza shoreline to deliver humanitarian aid. The plan, announced by Biden in his State of the Union address Thursday, is a “contradiction” given the administration’s political and military support for Israel, she said.
“The U.S. needs to divest from Israel,” Stark said. “We need to use our influence and our power to demand a ceasefire.”
Organizers with the Philly Palestine Coalition said the rally aimed to bring attention to the Palestinian cause and “politically educate” passers-by who saw the marchers and heard speakers calling for a cease-fire.
“The first step is always mobilizing people, getting them to become more aware about the situation on the ground, even bystanders on the street who might not be cognizant of what’s happening on the news,” said organizer Nada Abuasi, a Drexel student who is Palestinian.
Organizers estimated more than 1,000 people participated in Saturday’s rally. Police blocked off traffic as protesters walked through the streets to City Hall, chanting “Free Palestine,” and reciting slogans like, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
After a stop at City Hall, they walked north on Broad Street and protested outside the Spring Garden Street offices of Day & Zimmermann, a defense contractor they say produces weapons being used by the Israeli military.
While less frequent than pro-Palestinian rallies, supporters of Israel also have held protests around the region.
To mark 150 days since the Hamas attack, on March 3 pro-Israel protestors rallied in Rittenhouse Square to call for the hostages’ release. In late February a pro-Israel march in Lower Merion briefly engaged with a simultaneous demonstration by opponents of the war, the Inquirer reported.
