Pro-Palestinian protested in the streets of New York City on Tuesday evening as tension continued to escalate in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

About 1,000 protesters expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people demonstrated outside the Israeli consulate in midtown Manhattan.

“If you want peace, leave Al Aqsa alone, leave the West Bank alone, leave the Palestinians alone, leave the Middle East alone,” one protester told The National.

It was one of several protests in support of the Palestinians across the US on Tuesday.

In Washington, dozens of people gathered outside the US State Department building to express their outrage over the US government’s support of Israel as well as its response to the unrest in Jerusalem.

“As US taxpayers and residents in the United States, we are funding the Israeli apartheid, we are funding ongoing settler colonialism and the removal of these families,” said Noura Erakat, a prominent Palestinian American and human rights lawyer. “Israel could not maintain its domination, could not maintain its impunity, without the support of the United States.”

Israeli violence against Palestinians broke out in Jerusalem last week after an Israeli court ruled to evict several Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

Over the past two days, Israeli airstrikes in Gaza killed at least 60 people, including 14 children, according to Palestinian health officials.

In Washington, Roula Malki, 51, who was born in Jerusalem but has lived in the US since 1979, said she felt let down by the Biden administration’s silence in the face of what was happening in her hometown.

“There are just horrific things going on, especially the children, innocent people, going through what they go through every single day. It’s just a shame. Nobody should have to go through that. It’s very inhumane,” she said.

Ms. Malki said US citizens had a duty to hold their government accountable for what it did abroad.

 

Source: Palestine Responds