An election-year roast of US President Joe Biden before journalists, celebrities, and politicians at the annual White House correspondents' dinner has butted up against growing public discord over the Hamas-Israel war.
Hundreds of protesters outside the event on Saturday condemned both Biden's handling of the conflict and the Western news' media coverage of it.
Biden used the glitzy annual White House Correspondents' Association banquet to jab at his rival, Donald Trump, following the jokes with solemn warnings about what he said would happen if the Republican won the presidency again.
Biden's speech, which lasted about 10 minutes, made no mention of the ongoing war or the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
"Shame on you!" protesters draped in the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh cloth shouted, running after men in tuxedos and suits and women in long dresses who were holding clutch purses, as guests and other participants hurried inside.
Chants accused US journalists of under-covering the war and misrepresenting it.
"Western media we see you, and all the horrors that you hide," crowds chanted at one point.
Other protesters lay sprawled motionless on the pavement, next to mock-ups of flak vests with "press" insignia.
Ralliers cried "Free, free Palestine."
They cheered when at one point someone inside the Washington Hilton — where the dinner has been held for decades — unfurled a Palestinian flag from a top-floor hotel window.
Criticism of the Biden administration's support for Israel's six-month-old military offensive in Gaza has spread through US college campuses, with students pitching encampments in an effort to force their universities to divest from Israel.
Counterprotests back Israel's offensive and complain of antisemitism.
Protest organisers said they wanted to bring attention to the high numbers of Palestinian and other Arab journalists killed by Israel's military since the war began in October.
More than two dozen journalists in Gaza wrote a letter last week calling on their colleagues in Washington to boycott the dinner altogether.
"The toll exacted on us for merely fulfilling our journalistic duties is staggering," the letter stated.
"We are subjected to detentions, interrogations, and torture by the Israeli military, all for the 'crime' of journalistic integrity."
According to a preliminary investigation released on Friday by the Committee to Protect Journalists, nearly 100 journalists have been killed covering the war.
Israel has defended its actions, saying it has been targeting militants.
More than 34,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel's bombardment started on 7 October, according to Gaza health officials.
The escalation in conflict came after an attack on Israel by Hamas in which over 1,100 people were killed and more than 240 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
