Protesters took to the streets in over 250 protests across more than 60 countries Saturday, Oct. 10, in a global Day of Action for Palestine. In D.C., hundreds marched outside the Capitol wrapped in keffiyehs and waving Palestinian and Iranian flags, demanding freedom for Palestinians and an end to U.S. military aid to Israel.
“Israel bombs, USA pays, how many kids did you kill today?” protesters yelled into megaphones as a group of Capitol Police Officers encircled the march. Demonstrators carried handmade signs and banners criticizing the U.S.’s role in funding the ongoing violence in Palestine.
The United States provided Israel with $298 billion (adjusted for inflation) between 1946 and 2024, making it the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since World War II. According to Brown University’s Costs of War Project, the U.S. has provided $21.7 billion in direct military aid and spent an estimated $9.65 to $12.07 billion on military operations in the Middle East since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks.
“We’re here to demand an end to the genocide,” said Katie Sayur, a protester and member of the Anti-War Committee DMV. “We’re here to protest our tax dollars continuing to be used for bombs and occupation and to fund Israel and their war crimes.”
Organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement, the demonstration brought together regional and national organizations to demand complete divestment from Israel. These organizations included the Democratic Socialists of America, Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestinian Feminist Collective and Neturei Karta.
“I don’t believe that we should be giving money to Netanyahu, a war criminal, to use as he pleases, and I don’t believe in genocide,” Jeanne Ferris, a self-described “freelance protester” from Maryland, said.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports that at least 74,000 Palestinians have been killed and 175,000 injured in Israeli attacks since the war began. The actual toll, however, is likely much higher as the Ministry only counts deaths recorded at hospitals or that are officially registered. Although a ceasefire technically came into effect Oct. 10, 2025, at least 1,400 Palestinians have died in subsequent attacks.
“You know what they always say about what the Germans didn’t do under Hitler,” Ferris said. “Everybody says, ‘well, of course I would have stood up and protested.’ Well, by gum, I am standing up and protesting.”
Behind her, a speaker gestured at the Capitol building, describing its lawmakers as willingly prioritizing “the interests of the war industry” over diplomacy, and “shamelessly” profiting off of war.
A 2025 United Nations report identified 48 corporate entities as enabling or profiting off of Israel’s occupation, highlighting Microsoft, Google and Amazon for providing the Israeli government with billions of dollars worth of “core tech infrastructure.”
For Jozi Zwerdling, a D.C. resident who stood near a contingent of Jewish protesters holding a sign that said “Jewish workers for a free D.C. and Palestine,” the demonstration was an opportunity to challenge the use of Jewish identity to justify Israel’s actions in Palestine.
“As an anti-Zionist Jew, it feels like our responsibility to … remind the world that our grief over the Holocaust, over pogroms and our history, does not justify what has happened in any way, shape or form with Zionism and the colonization of Palestine,” Zwerdling said.
Zwerdling said the movement’s demands include ending U.S. arms shipments to Israel, equal rights for Palestinians and the right of return for Palestinians who have been displaced over the past 78 years.
“These atrocities are not acceptable and have nothing to do with being Jewish, and Zionism is not Judaism, and anti-Zionism is not antisemitism,” Zwerdling said.
Zwerdling described anti-Zionism as a longstanding tradition, citing The Jewish Labor Bund, a late nineteenth century secular, Jewish socialist party that rejected the creation of a Jewish ethnostate.
“There was always a philosophy that we should be fighting alongside marginalized groups that we live among for equal rights and freedom for all,” Zwerdling said. “And anti-Zionist Jews from the get-go were like, the answer is not copying a Euro-colonial model of colonization and displacing an entire people and starting a forever war, now genocide.”
Among the crowd, a protester shouted insults at a counter-protester filming the protest. The counter-protester, Charles Downs, responded by pointing to signs calling for President Donald Trump’s impeachment.
“See? They’re deranged! But yes, impeach Trump, impeach Trump, that’s what they want,” Downs said while recording. “Come out to vote MAGA, otherwise you’re going to be empowering this.”
Downs later uploaded the video to X with a caption that alleged the protesters were aligned with Hamas. He claimed that the Democratic Socialists of America had taken over the Democratic Party’s base, describing it as an “epic takeover” of the party’s platform.
“I want to show MAGA, the voters who might not want to vote, the other side, how extreme and radical they’ve become. If you vote to empower the Democrats you’re literally for this,” Downs said afterwards, gesturing to the protest.
Downs followed the crowd as protesters marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to Dar Alhurriya, Palestine House of Freedom, an organization that hosts educational events and discussions about Palestine. Leading the march, a group of young men held a hand-painted banner reading “Never say that those martyred in the cause of Allah are dead, indeed they are alive.”
Inside, protesters shifted from demonstrating to commemoration. They listened to a recorded interview with Mustafa Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, and heard from Jehad Abusalim, executive director of the Gaza Genocide Center, about their work recording incidents in Gaza and preserving accounts from survivors and witnesses.
“The official death count is more than 74,000, and we know that the actual number is much higher than that,” Abusalim said. “Behind every number there is a person, there is a story, there is a family, there are dreams and ambitions that Israel had no right to kill.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and journalist Mosab Abu Toha concluded the commemoration ceremony by speaking and reading some of his poems about surviving the war in Gaza. He described the precariousness of daily life for Palestinians living under Israeli attacks.
“There are thousands and thousands of genocide survivors now who may not be survivors in the next two or three hours, two or three minutes,” Abu Toha said, adding that seven people had been killed in Palestine on that Saturday.
For Palestinians in Gaza, survival has also meant enduring a devastating famine, with Israeli blockades and restrictions on aid depriving civilians of adequate food and other essentials. The World Food Program has warned that up to 90 percent of the population could face high levels of acute food insecurity by the end of 2026.
“These people, before they were killed today, just imagine how much it took them to survive,” Abu Toha said.
This article was edited by Olivia Wood, Cara Halford and Gabrielle McNamee. Copy editing done by Avery Grossman, Nicole Kariuki and Jaden Maitland Anderson. Fact-checking done by Josie Burnette.
