SATC star Cynthia Nixon goes on hunger strike to demand Gaza ceasefire

Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon began a hunger strike, along with a group of activists, this week, to demand US President Joe Biden calls for a permanent ceasefire in Israel's war on Gaza.

The American actress, who played Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series, said she was fasting for five days in protest over the issue, adding that her two children were Jewish and their grandparents were survivors of the Holocaust.

"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," Nixon said during a protest outside the White House on Wednesday.

"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."

Nixon was also among the signatories of a letter to Biden urging for a ceasefire and permitting the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza after Israel cut off water and electricity from the besieged enclave.

"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," Nixon said.

"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."

The war on Gaza has so far killed around 15,000 Palestinians, including over 8,000 children, with hospitals, schools, and homes destroyed in Israel's brutal and shelling campaign since 7 October.

Last week, the US House of Representatives passed a Republican plan to give $14.3bn in aid to Israel amid its war on Gaza.

The House bill would provide billions for Israel’s military, including $4bn for Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling defence systems to be able to counter short-range rockets, as well as some transfers of equipment from US stocks.

Biden had also asked Congress to approve a broader $106bn emergency spending package, including funding for Israel.

SATC was one of the biggest shows of the 1990s and 2000s, with Nixon playing one of four protagonists in the show, with a spin-off, 'And Just Like That', recently released.