Above photo: US President Joe Biden faced protests at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Palestine Chronicle.
The protest took place outside the Washington Hilton, where the dinner was being held.
Pro-Palestine demonstrators protested the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, denouncing the Biden administration’s handling of the war in Gaza and media coverage of the conflict that has killed tens of thousands, the Anadolu news agency reported.
According to Al-Jazeera, Biden avoided the large crowd of protesters at the front entrance of the hotel, and entered through the back entrance, where he was greeted by a smaller number of protesters demanding a ceasefire .
Organized by the US-based activist group CodePink, the protest took place outside the Washington Hilton, where the dinner was being held.
Demonstrators greeted officials from the administration, journalists and celebrities entering the venue with chants of “Shame on you.”
Protesters displayed a large Palestinian flag from the window of the hotel and staged a “die-in” to honor journalists killed in Israeli attacks against the Gaza Strip.
They held banners that read: “Ceasefire”, “Free Palestine” and “Biden’s legacy is genocide.”
Protesters also chanted slogans including “Genocide Joe”, “Free Palestine” and “Western media, shame on you! You are hiding genocide too!”
Many demonstrators wore keffiyehs, a scarf that has come to symbolize solidarity with Palestine, and waved Palestinian flags.
“The Correspondents’ Dinner is nothing more than a celebration and endorsement of the administration’s actions. It is not journalism. It is complicity,” the group wrote on X.
Bloody press vests with the names of every journalist killed in Gaza and the West Bank were displayed on the street across from the hotel.
Biden is facing a growing movement criticizing his policies as the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza continues.
Last March, where demonstrators disrupted an event in New York due to American support for Israel.
Gaza Genocide
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, 34,454 Palestinians have been killed, and 77,575 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
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.
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’.