Cynthia Nixon begins hunger strike calling for Israel-Gaza ceasefire

The Sex and the City star is calling for a ceasefire in Gaza

Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon is on hunger strike in protest at the Israel-Hamas war.

The 57-year-old actor, who formerly ran for mayor of New York City, made the announcement outside the White House on Tuesday, 28 November, and called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

“Almost 15,000 Palestinian civilians, 70% of them children and women, have been killed in the last seven weeks,” said Nixon. “This is unprecedented. This is more people than were killed by the US and its allies in 20 years of war in Afghanistan.”

Nixon continued: “We are hunger striking as a way of amplifying that yes, Palestinians are being bombed and killed, but they’re also being starved and so many of them are on the brink of starvation.”

She was joined by five US state representatives as they called for President Joe Biden to do more for Palestinians.

Cynthia Nixon is calling for a permanent ceasefire (Getty Images)

They included New York state representative Zohran Mamdani, who said: “The message I am giving is to President Joe Biden, to call on him to demand an immediate ceasefire. We are here starving ourselves on any food for five days to bring a little light to what Palestinians are suffering through because of the policies of our president.”

Mamdani added: “The world that we are fighting for is one where every family is united, and the only way we can get there is through a ceasefire.”

Author Sumaya Awad, who is also on hunger strike, explained: “The reason we’re employing this tactic is that we feel [Biden] has not listened to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have taken up all sorts and types of protests across the country.”

Nixon is currently appearing in the HBO period drama The Gilded Age, which has just returned for its second season.

Nixon and Christine Baranski in ‘The Gilded Age’ (Barbara Nitke/HBO)

The series stars Louisa Jacobson as young Marian Brook, who has moved from rural Pennsylvania to live with her aunts Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and Ada Brook (Nixon) in New York. The show follows Marian as she is exposed to a new world on the brink of the modern age.

Set in the late 1800s, the series has been billed as the “American Downton Abbey”.