Protesters disrupt Biden's San Francisco hotel to demand a Gaza ceasefire: Demonstrators chant 'you can't hide, we charge you with genocide'

About 30 Gaza protesters infiltrated the hotel where President Joe Biden was staying in San Francisco on Thursday, before chanting: 'Ceasefire now.'

Biden was at the luxury Fairmont hotel, where he earlier met the widow and daughter of Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader who died in a Russian prison on Friday.

The protest group mingled with guests of the hotel, before breaking into chants with a loudspeaker as Biden was due to leave.

'Biden, Biden, you can't hide. We charge you with genocide,' they sang, as bemused guests around the hotel coffee shop looked on.

They unfurled a banner saying: 'Stop funding Genocide: End all US aid to Israel.' 

About 30 Gaza protesters entered the hotel where President Joe Biden was staying in San Francisco on Thursday, chanting: 'Ceasefire now.'

At least one protester was wearing a Jewish kippah or skullcap.

They followed the White House press pool through the hotel to make their point, as Biden and his team prepared to leave.

Biden is on the final day of a three-day fundraising swing through California.

The hotel was open to guests, who could enter the lobby and its shops without any checks. 

However, the did not get close to the hotel's tower wing, which has been sealed off by Secret Service agents. 

He has largely avoided public outpourings of anger at his full-throated support for Israel as it bombards the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, where more than 28,000 people have been killed. 

But the issue is dividing his party, with the progressive wing increasingly vocal in its opposition to Israel's offensive.

The protest group mingled with guests of the hotel, before breaking into chants with a loudspeaker as Biden was due to leave

Biden was at the Fairmont hotel, where he earlier met the widow and daughter of Alexei Navalny , the opposition leader who died in a Russian prison on Friday 

Biden spoke to reporters just after the protest to discuss his meeting with the Navalny family

A small crowd of protesters gathered close to a Beverly Hills home where he attended a campaign reception on Tuesday evening. Some guests there donated as much as $250,000 for the honor of meeting the president.

At least 23 Palestinians were killed on Thursday in Israeli bombardments of houses in central Gaza, according to the enclave's Hamas-controlled health ministry.

A recent poll found half of U.S. adults concluded that Israel had 'gone to far' in its war in Gaza. 

The issue could prove particularly thorny in battleground states. Biden trailed Trump 45-41 in a new EPIC-MRA poll in Michigan, a state Biden carried in 2020 and Trump won in 2016. It has a large Arab American population and substantial Muslim communities.

Minutes after the protest, Biden spoke to reporters in the parking garage of the hotel. He made no mention of the disruption and instead described his meeting with the Navalny family.

'He was a man of incredible courage and it's amazing how his wife and daughter are emulating that,' he said.