Dozens gathered outside Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin’s office in Rockville on Monday night to call for a cease-fire amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
The protest was organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The director of the organization’s Maryland office told WTOP they opted for Cardin’s office because he is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“We’re encouraging Sen. Cardin to introduce a resolution in the Senate, a sister resolution to the House Resolution 786, which is a ‘cease-fire now’ resolution, and to call on his colleagues in the Senate to also support that,” Zainab Chaudry said.
The group of about 75 protesters endured Monday night’s rain, holding signs and chanting phrases such as “Biden, Biden, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”
The death toll among Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas war passed 8,300, comprised mostly of women and children, the Gaza Health Ministry said Monday.
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The Biden administration has cast doubt on the reliability of the Ministry’s figures. The United Nations have said the Gaza ministry, an agency in the Hamas-controlled government, has historically made a good-faith effort to account for the dead under the most difficult conditions.
“Thousands of people have been slaughtered, Palestinians, many of them, majority of them innocent Palestinians, have been killed. Over 4,000 children have been killed. To know that our tax dollars, billions of our tax dollars, are funding the genocide that’s occurring is unconscionable,” Chaudry said.
Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack — another unprecedented figure.
“Innocent life everywhere deserves to be protected, whether it’s Palestinian or Israeli, Muslim or Jewish or Christian, everybody deserves to be protected who are innocent civilians,” Chaudry said.
She said CAIR’s Maryland office has had several meetings with Sen. Cardin and his staffers over the past couple weeks and CAIR hasn’t gotten any firm answers about what he’ll do to support a cease-fire.
“We need our elected leaders to take action. We need them to do everything in their power to call for an immediate cease-fire and to call for immediate humanitarian aid into Gaza,” Chaudry said.
The Associated Press and WTOP’s Kyle Cooper contributed to this report.