Demonstrations in Washington begin ahead of Netanyahu's US Capitol speech

On the week that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting Washington, DC, activists are holding demonstrations in protest of his stay and will hold a mass rally on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, when he is scheduled to speak before Congress.

On Monday, as government vehicles with tinted windows arrived at the fenced-off Watergate Hotel, where Netanyahu is staying during his visit this week, dozens of demonstrators gathered near the hotel entrance to protest his visit.

"We're here outside the Watergate Hotel, where Netanyahu is being hosted. He's been invited by Congress, and he plans on meeting with the Biden administration. We're here to demand an arms embargo," Anyssa Dhaouadi, a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement, told The New Arab, while a nearby crowd loudly chanted and beat drums in front of the hotel.

"Over the last nine months, across the United States, on the local, state and federal levels, people have been demanding a ceasefire," she said.

Since October, Israel's continuous bombing of Gaza, in retaliation for a surprise attack by Hamas that killed around 1,150 in Israel, has killed around 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza as well as the West Bank. The airstrikes and siege have left the majority of Gazans with reliable infrastructure or sources of food.

A recent report in the medical journal the Lancet estimates that direct and indirect deaths caused by the war could be as high as 186,000.

Early in the war, Biden said that Rafah was his red line. In June, with Israel's invasion of the border city, demonstrators stage a mass protest around the White House, saying that they were Biden's human red line.

On Wednesday morning at 11 am, thousands of people from across the US are expected to demonstrate at the US Capitol, where Netanyahu will be giving his speech to Congress. In addition to the mass gathering in Washington, other cities, including Chicago, will be holding smaller demonstrations on Wednesday in protest of Netanyahu's visit to the US.

Vice President Kamala Harris, now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, will not attend Netanyahu's speech, marking the first time she will miss a foreign leader's address at the Capitol. Her office has said she has committed to an event at a university sorority in Indiana. It is unclear if she made this decision before or after Netanyahu made his plans to speak at the US Capitol.

Several Congress members, mainly progressives, have said they will be boycotting the speech. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who invited Netanyahu to speak, has said that any lawmaker who disrupts the Israeli prime minister's speech could face arrest.

The United Auto Workers, which called for a ceasefire in December, will be joining the mass demonstration in Washington on Wednesday.

In a public statement, the labour union said, "Since December, the UAW has been calling for a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine, and for an end to the war on Gaza. This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to come to Congress to ask our government to keep supporting this war. We reject this insult to all those calling for peace and justice."