Joe Biden said pro-Palestinian protesters who gathered in Chicago on Monday outside the Democratic convention to denounce his administration’s support for Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip had “a case to make.”
• Also read: Security at the heart of the Democratic convention in Chicago
• Also read: IN PICTURES | United States: Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters against Biden
“These protesters who are out in the streets have a point to make. A lot of innocent people have been killed, on both sides,” the US president said of the conflict that has been ongoing for more than a decade, sparked by the Hamas attack on Israeli soil in October.
Hours before he was due to take the stage on the first day of his party’s convention, a group of protesters briefly breached the outer security perimeter protecting the venue where the event is taking place, before being pushed back by police.
On October 7, commandos from the Palestinian movement infiltrated from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel launched an attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people on the Israeli side, according to an AFP count based on official figures.
In response, the Israeli army launched intense aerial bombardments and then a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, which left more than 40,000 dead, according to the Hamas government’s health ministry.
Washington’s near-unconditional support for Israel’s war in Gaza has sharply divided the Democratic Party, with many left-wing voices and Arab-Americans calling on US President Joe Biden to end it.
Monday’s demonstration, the first in a series planned for the four-day convention, brought together thousands of people determined, organizers said, to “tell the genocidal leaders of the Democratic Party that they support Palestine and call for an end to all U.S. aid to Israel.”
About a hundred of them left the main crowd and tried to enter the convention grounds. At least one of the protesters, dressed in black, was arrested, an AFP journalist at the scene noted.
