At least 250 protesters — including at least 30 members of the Students for Justice in Palestine at GWU and four members of the GW Law Students for Justice in Palestine — gathered outside of the White House on Tuesday to protest U.S. military aid to Israel and the war in Gaza. 

With the White House in the near distance behind them, the protest featured speakers from organizations like the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the DMV Coalition of Students for Justice in Palestine. The rally featured chanting, prayer and speeches given by organizers throughout the night, where they called for an end to the war and condemned American and Israeli officials for playing a role in the war’s casualties.

Just before 7 p.m., attendees began to gather in the street in front of the White House while organizers set up a microphone and speakers and others distributed signs. The signs, some homemade and others provided by the organizers, were inked with phrases including “Jews worldwide condemn Israeli bloody brutality” and “End all U.S. aid to Israel, free Palestine, stand with resistance to occupation.”

The protest began with chants led by organizers which called for the end of U.S. military aid to Israel and an end to the war. 

“We don’t want our tax dollars used for Palestinian slaughter,” the demonstrators chanted.

Israel carried out airstrikes in Gaza early Tuesday morning that killed at least 400 people, ending a 42-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The United States has spent more than $22 billion in military aid to Israel and related American operations in the region since Oct. 7, 2023, according to Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. 

Just after 7:10 p.m., as more protesters arrived and the crowd grew closer to the White House fence, U.S. Park Police officers put up police tape in between the crowd and the fence surrounding the White House North Lawn.

After a few minutes of continued chanting, organizers announced they would be rolling out prayer mats and taking a break for those attendees who wanted to perform the Maghrib prayer, an Islamic prayer said at sundown. 

Following the prayer, a representative of the Party for Socialism and Liberation who didn’t provide their name spoke to the crowd and said the recent escalation in the war was not the fault of the Palestinians in Gaza but of the United States and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because Israel didn’t provide the agreed-upon humanitarian aid. Israel stopped the flow of aid into Gaza on March 2, which Arab states and the United Nations condemned as a violation of the ceasefire agreement and against international law.

“So let’s get it straight before they go to the press, they go to Congress, they say this Hamas’ fault, this is whatever’s fault, this is the resistance’s fault,” the representative said. “We know who the enemy is.”

A representative of the Palestinian Youth Movement delivered the final speech of the night and said the pro-Palestinian movement celebrated when the ceasefire began, but many members knew it would be short-lived because of the long history of the conflict in the region.

“We chose to revel in that moment, to let ourselves feel joy, and now what we are afraid of has come true, 500 people in Gaza did not wake up this morning,” the speaker said. 

He said President Donald Trump and Netanyahu are responsible for killing Palestinians who died in Israel’s airstrike campaign that marked the end of the ceasefire, calling the governments in the United States and Israel “fascist regimes.” The speaker said Gaza has been the focal point of the violence in this war, but the pro-Palestinian movement must not lose sight of the their movement’s bigger picture.

“We can’t isolate Gaza from the rest of Palestine. We can’t isolate Gaza from the Arab world, and we can’t isolate Gaza from what’s happening to us here and from around the world,” he said.

The speaker encouraged the audience to keep fighting for the Palestinian cause and pointed to the attendees of the protest as reason to be hopeful. He said the pro-Palestinian movement continued for those who have protested before them and those who are enduring war today. 

“Liberation is vested for those who remain on the path and refuse the temptations of capitulation and any surrender. That is why we fight,” the PYM representative said. “We fight for yesterday, to honor those who came before us. We fight for the present and those who are suffering before our eyes.” 

This protest included some of the same organizations who joined the GW SJP at their pro-Palestinian encampment last spring, including the DMV Coalition of Students for Justice in Palestine.

A representative of GW SJP who spoke on the condition of anonymity said more than 30 GW students had gathered and traveled from campus to the protest with the organization. The representative said students’ attendance was in response to the recent escalation in the war in Gaza, specifically offensive Israeli military actions in the West Bank region, Syria and Lebanon. 

“We have to come and we have an obligation as citizens of this country, to show that that is not something that we endorse, and that’s something we’ll continue to fight as long as the government continues to engage in it,” the SJP representative said. 

The representative said SJP is hoping the University will not give them “any trouble” during the group’s events this week and said the University may react in response to pressure from the federal government. SJP has a number of events planned for this week as part of its Palestinian Liberation Week, including tabling outside of Kogan Plaza and a panel event about repression and counterinsurgency. 

The representative said the University has taken action in recent weeks to cancel previously approved SJP events on campus without citing a violation to University rules or the terms of the organization’s suspension. Officials earlier this month barred SJP from hosting on-campus events “until further notice,” saying the group violated policy by preventing Division for Student Affairs personnel from attending programming.

“We know they’re under a lot of pressure from the federal government to react and to crack down on pro-Palestinian speech and to crack down on pro-Palestinian students, but sort of either way, we’ll be here.” the representative said.