WASHINGTON, DC — Tiny ballet flats, palm-sized flip flops, velcro-strap sneakers with Frozen movie character illustrations.

Approximately 17,000 pairs of children’s shoes lined Pennsylvania Avenue on Saturday, March 5, in a memorial for Palestinian children killed by the Israeli military since October 2023. According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), more than 15,000 children have been killed in Gaza over the last 18 months; higher estimates, including those reported by Al Jazeera, place the number of children killed at over 17,000.

“As we’re standing here, this line will bring the presence of these children,” Jasper Saah, a United States-born Palestinian multimedia artist and organizer for Artists Against Apartheid (AAA), told Hyperallergic.

The shoe memorial installation, displayed by the New York City cultural advocacy organization the People’s Forum, split a crowd of tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered in view of the United States Capitol for last weekend’s March for Palestine. Coinciding with the nationwide “Hands Off!” anti-Trump marches, demonstrators joined millions of Americans in protesting and rebuking the administration’s actions this weekend.

An approximately 200-foot-long list reading “We honor all our martyrs” extends deep into the crowd of a pre-march rally.

Over 100 artists signed up to march with the AAA — an interdisciplinary movement born out of the People’s Forum. Members of the group created a blood-soaked Donald Trump puppet, portraits of slain journalists, and banners depicting students targeted by the Department of Homeland Security, and unfurled a nearly 200-foot-long list of Gazans killed since October 2023, held above the heads of two lines of demonstrators. Activists from other groups, including Code Pink and Doctors Against Genocide, joined the march to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building, standing face-to-face with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) police officers.

For the memorial, children’s shoes were donated directly to the People’s Forum and to DC organizers from the Baltimore and Richmond areas, Saah told Hyperallergic.

A demonstrator dresses in white garments doused in red and holds a mock child’s body bag. (photo taken with permission)

Saah designed 10 large portraits of journalists targeted by Israeli forces, including Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat, who was killed after the military accused him of terrorism affiliations he denied, and Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot by an Israeli sniper in the Occupied West Bank in 2022.

The signs, which portrayed the journalists wearing blue press vests on a glowing yellow backdrop, were built in DC by dozens of volunteers and engineered to be carried at the head of the march, which ended around 5pm in front of the National Mall. The children’s shoes were left behind at the rallying point on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Shoes were collected through drives in New York, DC, Maryland, and Virginia, and arrived on buses coming from other cities.

Back at the People’s Forum in New York City last week, Mia Sterbini — an actor who started making street art with AAA — was working on the red-splattered Trump puppet and banners featuring students detained by DHS, including Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk.

“Trump, with two bloody hands, signifies his ongoing support for the genocide of the Palestinian people, and, honestly, for the destruction of people here in the United States as well,” Sterbini told Hyperallergic.

Mohammad Ahmad, lead organizer for Northern Kentucky for Palestine, stood at Saturday’s pre-march rally with a five-person contingent that took the bus into DC for the demonstration. The group brought with them a banner they painted featuring Palestinian hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was arbitrarily detained by the Israeli military last December and reportedly tortured.

Ahmad and his fellow activists listed the names of paramedics, doctors, and other healthcare workers killed by the Israeli military.

Portraits of journalists targeted and killed by the Israeli military lead the march, including one of Shireen Abu Akleh (right).

“[This banner] is to really open up people’s eyes to the truth because they really think it’s a war and a conflict, but this banner says otherwise,” Ahmad told Hyperallergic. “In a war or conflict, you don’t kidnap doctors and murder healthcare workers.”

After last weekend’s protests, AAA will continue to create political art. At one of the People’s Forum weekly volunteer meetings in New York City on March 26, pro-Palestinian organizers broke into groups based on their borough, and a small group of artists headed downstairs to create protest art. Some opened paint cans while others mass-stapled picket signs.

“Art is a tool … this is me communicating what actually needs to be done,” Jaylen Strong, an AAA organizer, told Hyperallergic during a volunteer meeting. “No matter what it is, if you’re an artist or if you’re a barber, it’s about what you do every single day to commit yourself to humanity.”