- By Allyson Aleksey | Examiner staff writer
- Jun 5, 2024 Updated Jun 6, 2024 (SFExaminer.com)
A group of about 100 protestors rallied outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ fundraising event in the Mission on Wednesday, calling attention to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Harris was in San Francisco Wednesday afternoon to attend a reelection fundraiser leading up to the November presidential election, a day before former President Donald Trump was set to attend a campaign fundraiser in Pacific Heights.
Demonstrators criticized Harris and the United States’ continued financial and military support of Israel’s operations against Hamas following the group’s Oct. 7 attack in the country. Hamas militants killed around 1,200 people that day, most of whom were Israeli civilians, and took around 250 hostages, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
Israeli forces have killed more than 36,000 Palestinians during the country’s subsequent military campaign, according to health officials in Gaza. That figure doesn’t differentiate between civilians and militants.
Arab Resource and Organizing Center Executive Director Lara Kiswani, whose organization was one of the local groups behind the protest, said that the vice president “cannot expect to fundraise and campaign in our backyard without facing residents who’ve been working tirelessly to end this war and defeat fascism at home and abroad.”
“Vice President Harris has touted herself an advocate for women’s health, racial justice, and democracy against the threat of the far right, but continues to give full political, economic, and military backing to the racist and apartheid Israeli government that has killed tens of thousands of women and children,” Kiswani said.
Mama Ganuush, a local queer Palestinian artist and speaker at the rally, said his family went to the Rafah border to wait for safe passage last month. But Israeli troops seized control of Gaza’s Rafah border crossing on May 7, preventing aid from entering Palestine and refugees from leaving.
“My family now are starving to death in Palestine. This is because of these people, funding genocide right here,” he said.
Danielle Otlin, a Noe Valley resident, said she felt compelled to join the rally because she “knows the pain of losing a child” — her son Jude was delivered stillborn in 2019.
“I had the comfort of mourning my son, we were able to stay in the hospital with him. To say goodbye to your child, even in the best of circumstances, has forever changed me,” she told The Examiner. “To see so many children be murdered, shredded, decapitated, and seeing [politicians] do nothing, is beyond my comprehension.”
Otlin said she understands joining these protests “can be seen as controversial.”
“Although it shouldn’t be, and I am coming from a place of privilege,” she said. “But this is important to me, and I’m not afraid of [losing] my job, or any other consequence, because I’m participating.”
The Bay Area is the last leg of Harris’ reelection fundraising marathon along the West Coast. Harriss arrived in Southern California on May 30, with people protesting the Israel-Hamas war — and U.S. engagement in it — have disrupted campaign efforts in major cities.
A pro-Palestinian protester was arrested in San Diego on May 31 for jumping in front of Harris’ motorcade, preventing her from entering a reelection fundraiser there, according to San Diego County Sheriff’s Department Lieutenant Gavin Lanning. Harris visited Seattle last weekend, attending multiple campaign fundraisers.
Pro-Palestinian protesters also organized in Oakland on Wednesday ahead of a Biden-Harris fundraising event at a private home in Rockridge.
These Oakland and San Francisco protests followed major demonstrations across the Bay Area over the last nine months, including solidarity campouts at major universities, blockades on the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge, and protests outside of Harris and President Joe Biden’s San Francisco visit in November.
In March, Harris called for an immediate, temporary cease-fire in Gaza to support a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, calling the situation in Gaza a “humanitarian crisis.”
