Protesters bang pots and pans at Philly’s 30th Street Station to decry growing reports of ‘famine-like’ conditions in Gaza

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More than 100 people joined a rally outside Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, banging pots and pans to protest the war in Gaza and reports of mass starvation among Palestinians.

“As a mother, as a woman, it’s a horrible, horrible thing,” said Lynne Iser, a local resident. “How can we starve babies? It’s just … It’s heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking.”

Organizers originally planned to hold the protest inside, but when they arrived, police were blocking the doors and were requiring everyone to show a train ticket before they were allowed to enter.

According to a Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson, Amtrak Police decided to limit entry and called PPD to lend assistance.

“It’s not about stopping First Amendment expression, only about not having the station overwhelmed with noise from pots and pans and other conduct that could negatively impact commuters,” Capt. Frank Palumbo said in an email. “Also, any event inside would require a permit.

Hannah Mermelstein, an activist with Families for Ceasefire Philly, said they were surprised when they showed up and couldn’t get in, and that several police cars were parked outside.

“They might think we’re inconveniencing passengers, but they’re obviously inconveniencing people more right now by closing off the entire station,” Mermelstein said. “I think they don’t want to hear our voices loud inside, and these are voices that everyone needs to hear.”

‘Forced starvation’

The protesters were inspired to beat pots and pans by a call from Palestinian activist and filmmaker Bisan Owda, who won a Peabody Award for her reporting from Gaza, where she continues to live in a tent.

The people of Gaza have been “trapped in a nightmare and deprived of the basics to survive” since the end of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in March, according to the United Nations, which in a recent report said “vast amounts” of aid are needed to quell the “famine-like” conditions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the claims, saying there “is no starvation” in Gaza, and agreed to new aid drops as recently as Saturday night after reports just days earlier that hundreds, if not thousands, of aid seekers had been killed by Israeli forces since May.

“It’s awful,” Mermelstein said, adding her “kids ask questions, especially my 5-year-old, ‘Why are they doing this? How can we help? I’m worried about the people in Gaza,’” she said. “It is sad that this is the world that we are bringing them into and we need to change it.”

Hannah Capaldi, who joined the protest with her wife and two children, called it “forced starvation” by the Israeli government.

“There’s a genocide going on, so we’re out here,” she said. “I hope that somebody would turn out if my children were being starved this way, and so we’re doing it for them.”

“It’s been going on for longer than those photos show, but I’m sick to my stomach and I can’t believe anybody can look at them without being out here,” added her wife, Olivia Capaldi.

‘Feed the hungry’

Another protester, Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, said what’s happening violates his religion.

“It’s a basic commandment in Judaism to feed the hungry,” he said. “My parents were Holocaust survivors. I grew up hearing stories about people starving, and it just breaks my heart.”

Lynne Iser joined him at the protest and agreed that the parallels with the 1940s were clear.

“We have spent most of our majority of our adult [lives] wondering how people could stand by when they knew or they saw or they heard what was happening in Germany,” she said. “And we have to ask ourselves the very same questions. Are we just standing by? We can’t stand by. We have to get out. We must protest. It’s for our own humanity as well as for their future.”

Liebling said that he’s more hopeful now that more people in Israel are learning of the conditions in Gaza.

“The word is now really starting to percolate in Israel, and there has been a start of demonstrations throughout Israel in the last week against starvation,” Liebling said. “So there is finally a moral conscience awakening among people in Israel that what is happening is horrible.”

Mermelstein said she wasn’t hopeful, adding that then-President Joe Biden “did nothing to try to stop it. And now we have a government that is even less responsive to what people want.”

Although President Donald Trump has been a vocal supporter of Israel in the past, he said Monday that he sees “real starvation” in Gaza — pushing back from Netanyahu.

‘No good choices’

Mermelstein said she was disappointed in the Biden administration’s inaction on Gaza, which made her hesitant to cast her vote for Vice President Kamala Harris for president. However, knowing Pennsylvania’s important role in the election and concerned over how Donald Trump would handle the conflict, she voted for Harris in exchange with a Massachusetts resident who wrote in Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian who was killed last year.

“There was no good choice in my opinion,” she said. “It was completely unconscionable to me to actually vote for Harris as she was supporting genocide, and yet obviously also unconscionable to not do anything I could to keep Trump out of office.”