Protesters demand Gaza cease-fire during sit-in at US Capitol

WASHINGTON

More than 100 protesters held a sit-in demonstration Tuesday inside the Cannon Rotunda on Capitol Hill calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.

The demonstrators, affiliated with the faith-based pro-Palestinian rights group Mennonite Action, engaged in singing hymns and chanting slogans such as "Ceasefire" and "Let Gaza live!"

Later, Capitol Police intervened, with the group saying that 150 of their members were arrested during what they described as "peaceful civil disobedience."

According to a police statement circulated by the US media, police charged 130 demonstrators with "crowding, obstructing, or incommoding.”

“Demonstrations are not allowed inside Congressional Buildings, so when they started to protest and refused to stop, we began arresting them,” said the statement.

The Cannon Rotunda was the scene of a mass protest by a Jewish organization in October, followed by multiple arrests.

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, which Tel Aviv says killed 1,200 people.

At least 24,285 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and 61,154 injured, said Palestinian health authorities.

According to the UN, 85% of the population of Gaza is already internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure is damaged or destroyed.