San Francisco Report Back: CODEPINK IWD March/Rally for Gaza on the Golden Gate Bridge

by Toby Blomé | Photos by Martha Hubert

About 100 people converged to join our CODEPINK International Women’s Day (IWD) march/rally for Gaza yesterday on the Golden Gate Bridge. People came from as far away as Fairfield and Sunnyvale. As a feminist organization, our overlying theme on IWD was that reproduction rights must always include the right of mothers and fathers everywhere to raise their families in a safe environment, without warfare or violence, with sufficient food, clean water, housing, jobs, education and healthcare essential to thrive.  FREE PALESTINE!

It was a beautifully diverse crowd in terms of age, sex, and ethnicity and included many families with children of all ages. We were united in our call for an Immediate & Permanent Ceasefire, a FREE PALESTINE, and an End to U.S. funding and aiding of the Israeli-led genocide in Gaza. We were clearly a crowd moved by our humanity. STOP U.S. Complicity in Genocide!

Most importantly, we collectively recognized the urgent need for adequate and speedy delivery of sufficient food, water and other essential needs to ward off the pending mass deaths expected in Gaza from severe famine and dehydration. “Stop Bombing Children” and “Free Palestine” were recurrent chants.

Some marchers carried boxes labeled “Flour” over their heads to symbolize the ongoing desperate need for food, and to memorialize the “Gaza Flour Massacre” incident, on Feb. 29, when Israeli Defense Forces shot at hundreds of hungry people getting sacs of flour off of an aid truck near Gaza City, leaving hundreds dead or wounded:  Update on Flour Massacre. (Most were NOT killed by stampede, as the Israeli propaganda machine was spewing out.)

Youth led passionate chanting throughout the walk on the bridge, especially when pedestrians passed. And, as Kathe Burick expressed, there often seemed to be an overwhelming non-stop flood of horns honking in solidarity with our messages!

Other visuals included an abundance of small & large Palestinian flags, dozens of keffiyehs and many creative signs, including some large ones that expressed our key demands and the dire conditions of GAZA:

• -Stop Funding Israel
• -No Tax $$ 4 Genocide
• -2 Million Hungry
• -9,000 Women Killed
• -30,000 Killed
• -Food Not Bombs
• -FREE PALESTINE
• -Stop Zionism

Special thanks to David Solnit for lending his beautiful “seen everywhere” signs!

Martha Hubert did some great chalking on the bridge, in spite of harassment by bridge security, and again later near the plaza. Good mainstream media coverage helped us reach thousands more, including great photos and video by SF Chronicle! The day closed with an enthusiastic rally demanding justice in Palestine, that included chants, and a closing song:  “Peace, Salaam, Shalom.”

We made many new connections to Bay Area activists as our collective effort to seek justice in Palestine grows!  Rise Up People, Rise Up!

More photos and media coverage from event:

Martha Hubert’s Great Photos.\

SF Chronicle Article with Photos & Video

(NBC & KQED also covered our action)