Protesters gathered outside a hotel in the United States where the annual White House correspondent’s dinner was being held, calling for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza. They criticized President Joe Biden for supporting the military campaign and accused Western news outlets of not adequately covering the conflict.
Despite attending the event in Washington, DC and delivering a speech, Biden did not address the situation in Gaza or the humanitarian crisis unfolding there.
Simultaneously, antiwar demonstrations spread across US college campuses, with students setting up encampments and facing police intervention to pressure universities to divest from companies supporting Israel’s military actions in Gaza.
The protests disrupted Biden’s motorcade route to the Washington Hilton, where over 100 demonstrators, some waving Palestinian flags, voiced their disapproval as guests entered the venue.
Chants of “Western media we see you, and all the horrors that you hide” echoed through the crowd, with some protesters lying motionless on the ground next to symbolic bloodied flak vests labeled with “press” insignia.
The atmosphere intensified when a Palestinian flag was unfurled from a hotel window at the Washington Hilton, where the dinner has been a tradition for years.
Since the start of Israel’s offensive on Gaza last October, the Israeli military has targeted 142 media workers and detained 40 Palestinian journalists, as reported by the Government Media Office in Gaza.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) highlighted 2023 as the deadliest year for journalists in a decade, with 75 percent of those killed globally being Palestinian reporters covering the Gaza conflict.
In his address…
Article from www.aljazeera.com