Sex and The City star on hunger strike to demand a permanent ceasefire in Gaza
Sex and The City star Cynthia Nixon has gone on hunger strike to demand Joe Biden calls for a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
The actress is joined by several activists and politicians from five US states who are also taking part in the action. Speaking outside the White House, Nixon, 57, told a crowd her two children are Jewish and their grandparents are Holocaust survivors.
"As the mother of Jewish children whose grandparents are Holocaust survivors, I have been asked by my son to use any voice I have to affirm as loudly as possible that ‘never again’ means ‘never again for everyone,'" she said. "In seven weeks, Israel has killed more civilians on a tiny strip of land than was killed in 20 years of war in the entire country of Afghanistan.
READ MORE: Doctor pleads for Foreign Office to help save wife trapped in Gaza onslaught
The actress was joined by several activists from five US states (AFP via Getty Images)
Cynthia Nixon with Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and Kristin Davis in Sex and The City (New Line Cinema/Hbo/Village Roadshow/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)"I am sick and tired of people explaining away by saying that civilian casualties are a routine toll of war. There is nothing routine about these figures. There is nothing routine about these deaths."
British firm denies it supplied engines that power Israeli drone which killed aid workers
She made a direct appeal to President Biden, appearing to suggest that the early deaths of his wife, daughter, and son in the past should make him more sensitive to the Palestinian death toll. "I would like to make a personal plea to a president who has, himself, experienced such devastating personal loss, to connect with that empathy for which he is so well known and to look at the children of Gaza and imagine that they were his children," she said.
The five lawmakers taking part in the action are New York’s Zohran Mamdani, Oklahoma representative Mauree Turner, Delaware state representative Madinah Wilson-Anton, Virginia representative Sam Rasoul and Michigan representative Abraham Aiyash.
The five-day hunger strike was launched to coincide with what had been the scheduled end of a four-day truce in Gaza. Earlier this week, the truce was extended by a further two days following mediation from Egypt and Qatar.
The Biden administration has been criticised for enabling a bombardment and ground invasion that has so far killed more than 15,000 Palestinians - including more than 6,000 children, according to Gaza's health ministry. Mamdani, a Democratic state representative from New York, said: "We are taking this action of hunger striking to showcase the actions of President Biden.
"It’s President Biden’s actions that are leading to the bombing of Palestinians, the starving of Palestinians. So we are starving ourselves to make visible what is so often erased, which is the Palestinian experience."
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
