About 200 protesters gathered outside the White House on Sunday afternoon, waving Iranian and Palestinian flags and holding “No U.S.-Israeli War on Iran” a day after the U.S. carried out airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
The anti-war demonstration, organized by the Party for Socialism & Liberation, began at 2 p.m. outside the White House on Sunday — the day after President Donald Trump ordered strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites — and drew support from numerous activist organizations like the ANSWER Coalition, Kucheh Collective and Palestinian Youth Movement. The protesters condemned the airstrikes, called for a U.S. arms embargo against Israel and urged Trump not to further involve the U.S. in the war between Israel and Iran.
Trump on Monday said that Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire agreement after he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian officials. On Tuesday Trump said both sides had violated the agreement.
Israel launched Operation Rising Lion on June 13 to attack Iran’s nuclear and military sites, with Iran responding by launching about 100 drones towards Israel that morning, according to the Israeli Defense Force. Iran launched a strike against a U.S. military base, where thousands of troops are stationed, in Qatar on Monday, two days after the U.S. struck three nuclear sites.
Iran’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that at least 610 civilians had been killed by Israel’s strikes within the 12-day war period, and the Human Rights Activists News Agency, an advocate group for human rights in Iran, said the death toll is at least 974. The office of the prime minister of Israel said in a statement Tuesday that 28 people had been killed in total in Israel.
Trump said on Thursday he was weighing whether the U.S. should help Israel attack Iran’s Fordo uranium enrichment facility, and that he would decide in the next two weeks whether the U.S. military would get involved. He ordered airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites two days later.
“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” Trump posted to his Truth Social account on Saturday.
Mohsen, who did not provide their last name and identified themselves as a member of the Party for Socialism & Liberation, called on Trump to end U.S. involvement in the war. They said “American aggression” against Iran harms its people, playing a role in starving Iranian children and impeding Iran’s development.
“Iranians are more than capable of determining their destiny in creating the system that they desire,” Mohsen said. “To enable Iranians to exercise that self-determination, it is our job to oppose American intervention, to oppose Zionism.”
Laila Khalil, a protester who joined as part of the Palestinian Youth Movement, called on the Trump administration to stop providing funding for arms to Israel, and said the airstrikes on Iran would not have happened if an arms embargo was in place a year and a half ago at the start of the war in Gaza.
The U.S. sent at least $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel over the course of the first year of the war in Gaza, which began on October 7, 2023. Protesters have marched in D.C. and on GW’s campus since the outbreak of the war, demanding that institutions, including the University and U.S. government, divest from companies tied to Israel.
Khalil said both the Trump administration and former President Joe Biden’s administration “absolutely refused” to stop funding arms for Israel, and she has yet to see a candidate — Democrat or Republican — with a different position. She said “all” of the airstrikes on Iran were preventable, and it’s the job of the American people, most of whom she said are unaffected by the war, to stand against the Trump administration and reject funding the Israeli military.
“There needs to be an arms embargo against Israel, and there needs to be an end to all of this madness,” Khalil said.
Mariam, a protester from Michigan who did not provide her last name, said she and her friends were on vacation in D.C. when Trump ordered the airstrikes on Iran. She said they brought their Iranian-American children to the protest to teach them to stand up against injustice.
The group’s ten children held signs, including one that read “Please don’t bomb my family in Iran” and sang a song in Farsi about the unity of Iranian people. Mariam said the children did not want to be at the protest because of the heat, but made their own signs because they understood the importance of demonstrating.
“It doesn’t matter what background we come from, as long as we’re all Iranian, we’re all coming together as one Iran,” Mariam said.
A speaker ended their address to the crowd at about 3:25 p.m., and protesters dispersed. Separate protesters from Refuse Fascism, an anti-fascist coalition that protested Trump’s military parade earlier this month to rebuke Trump’s “militarization” of the country’s democracy, arrived shortly after the other protesters dispersed, and demand that Congress remove Trump from office.
David Barrows, a 1972 GW alum and protester with the Refuse Fascism organization, said the American people have not learned anything from their failure with prior wars, like the Vietnam War. He said many wars are avoidable, including the war in Gaza, because leaders could instead use “statecraft” and “human intelligence.”
“Why do we believe in single people’s power?,” Barrows asked. “Why don’t we believe in human rights?”
Aidan Farrell contributed reporting.
