Pro-Palestine protest takes place outside annual White House correspondents' dinner

HUNDREDS of demonstrators gathered outside the annual White House correspondents’ dinner on Saturday evening to protest the mounting humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

The dinner is typically devoted to presidents, journalists and comedians making jokes about the year’s political scandals.

This year, however, it was more difficult for attendees to ignore the crisis unfolding in Gaza, with more than 34,000 Palestinians believed to have been killed, with warnings from the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) that famine is imminent.

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Protesters condemned US President Joe Biden for his support of Israel’s military campaign and Western news outlets for what they said was undercoverage and misrepresentation of the conflict.

We reported on Saturday that the US had been accused – alongside Israel – of blocking a vital aid convoy carrying over 5000 tonnes of humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza.

Many protesters shouted “Shame on you” as the guests hurried inside for the dinner, and at one point the crowd chanted: “Western media we see you, and all the horrors that you hide.”

Other protesters lay sprawled motionless on the pavement surrounded by press vests as part of a “die-in” to honour the journalists who have been killed since the escalation of conflict in Gaza on October 7.

The most recent data from the International Federation of Journalists shows that 109 journalists have been killed whilst reporting on the war in Gaza since October 7.

The protest went unmentioned inside the dinner, with Biden instead focusing on Republican rival Donald Trump’s fight to reclaim the US presidency.

Biden opened his speech with a direct but joking focus on Trump, calling him “sleepy Don” – in reference to a nickname the Republican had given the president previously.

He added that another Trump administration would be even more harmful to America than his first term.

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“We have to take this serious – eight years ago we could have written it off as ‘Trump talk’ but not after January 6,” Biden told the audience, referring to the supporters of the Republican who stormed the Capitol after he was dumped from office in 2020.

Biden’s speech, which lasted around 10 minutes, made no mention of the ongoing war or the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

He also avoided the crowd of protestors as his motorcade took an alternative route from the White House to the Washington Hilton than in previous years.

One of the few mentions came from Kelly O’Donnell, president of the correspondents’ association, who briefly noted some 100 journalists killed in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza escalated more than 200 days ago.