Locked out, but still lobbying Ceasefire in Gaza a shared goal for Israelis and Palestinians

It was late in the evening when Ruby Chen, whose son Itay was kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October and later killed, approached and kneeled down next to Abbas Alawieh, a delegate from the "Uncommitted" pro-Palestinian movement who was planning to bed down for the night on the cement outside the venue where Kamala Harris this week formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination.

- Andrew Roth

For the four days of the Democratic national convention, while many visiting delegates were popping bottles of champagne at parties across Chicago, the two men were busy working the rooms at delegate breakfasts, juggling media interviews and courting senior Democrats to try to influence the administration's policies in Gaza.

Chen, along with other families of the hostages, has been urging the administration to increase pressure on both Hamas and Israel to reach a ceasefire deal that would return the more than 100 hostages still in Gaza, including his son's remains.

Abbas, other delegates and activists from the Uncommitted movement had come to demand an arms embargo to Israel and a permanent ceasefire to end the war in Gaza. Abbas, a delegate from Dearborn, Michigan, the first majority Arab-American city in the US, had also announced a sit-in as a last-ditch effort to get a Palestinian-American to speak from the stage of the convention - one that was ultimately refused.

"We're not going anywhere before November," Abbas said outside the arena on Wednesday.