Banging Pots For Gaza One Malaysian Mum S Daily Protest At Us Embassy

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For the past 16 evenings, as rush-hour traffic roared down Jalan Tun Razak, a different kind of sound pierces the din - the hollow clang of a battered cooking pot struck again and again.
From the far-left corner of the pedestrian walkway outside the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Wan Fatin Suriyanie Wan Ahmad, 48, stages her own solitary 10-minute ritual.
“Stop killing babies! What’s wrong with you?!
“People of the world, wake up!” she cries.
She paces a short section of the cobblestoned strip, voice breaking into fragments of rage and grief, hammering her late mother’s pot with a ladle until the metallic clang reverberates across the pavement.
“I can’t, not do, anything,” she told Malaysiakini, catching her breath, as though each strike of the ladle carried both defiance and mourning.
Wan Fatin Suriyani Wan Ahmad holds a pot and a photo of slain Anas Al-Sharif with his childrenAlong with the pot, she clutches a placard showing fallen Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif with his children.
In her other arm, the educator cradles an effigy baby swaddled in a blood-stained white cloth - a stand-in for the children killed in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
“In Gaza, everyone is a target. We’re no longer surprised by the destruction Israel can cause, but I still struggle to believe such cruelty is possible.
“I keep holding on to hope that among them, there must be someone capable of humanity,” she said.
End the war
Her protest is small in scale but heavy in symbolism.
Wan Fatin is not alone - from Kuala Lumpur to New York, and even in the streets of Israel, thousands marched this week, demanding an end to the war in Gaza.
Wan Fatin Suriyani Wan Ahmad banging her pot in front of the US embassy on Jalan Tun RazakWan Fatin’s message to the United States is clear: “US, you are responsible. You are funding a genocidal regime.”
To the Malaysian government, Wan Fatin cried: “US is funding a genocidal regime. Expel the US embassy.”
Israel’s ethnic cleansing
Teaching herself to be more social media savvy, Wan Fatin records her protest for TikTok, where some of her posts on @wfatinsuryanie have drawn more than 21,000 views.
Beyond TikTok, Wan Fatin has been learning through books and debates, following voices from Muslims, Arabs, Jews and Israelis and citing scholars like Norman Finkelstein and Israeli historian Ilan Pappé.
From Pappé’s book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”, she drew the point that framing it as a “war” or “conflict” numbs global sympathy, making Palestinian suffering appear like the cost of a battle rather than oppression.
Palestinians in Gaza suffer from famine due to Israel's blockage of humanitarian aidWan Fatin said she has come to understand that the conflict is often misrepresented as a balanced war between two states.
In reality, she argued, Zionist leaders intended from the outset to displace Palestinians through a process of ethnic cleansing.
For Wan Fatin, that framing makes it even more urgent for ordinary people to speak out and challenge the narrative.
“I feel the world is cognitively paralysed because, from the very start, the Zionists framed this not as what it actually was, but as a conflict, a war.
“We need to reframe it correctly, that from day one, it wasn’t a war. It was ethnic cleansing,” she said.
This framing matters, she added, because portraying the events as a conventional war obscures both the power imbalance and the systematic nature of the expulsions.
“Only by recognising this as deliberate ethnic cleansing, rather than symmetrical warfare, can the historical and present-day realities be fully understood,” she said.
Wan Fatin Suriyani Wan Ahmad says with every banging of the pot, she disrupts the US embassy’s quiet facadeWith every clang, Wan Fatin disrupts the embassy’s quiet facade, amplifying a grief that crosses borders.
Mothers of the world
For passersby, she is a striking image against the backdrop of diplomatic walls - a lone Malaysian woman, holding a pot and a baby effigy, determined to make herself heard despite the noise of the city.
“The police outside the embassy always ask me, which NGO are you from? I tell them I am representing the mothers of the world,” Wan Fatin said, recalling her first days outside the embassy.
At first, the police outside the embassy were aggressive in questioning her, but over time, she says, they softened after she explained: “It’s just 10 minutes, I don’t exceed that.”
For Wan Fatin, the act of protest does not require an organisation or a banner to march under.
A single mother to a 20-year-old son, she felt an unstoppable urge to act.
“As a Muslim, as a human being, as a citizen of Malaysia, there’s no such thing as not doing anything,” she said.
In her search for some way to express her objections to the genocide, Wan Fatin said she was inspired by Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda, who banged empty pots in Gaza to symbolise hunger, and a friend suggested they do the same outside the US embassy.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Bisan Owda (@wizard_bisan1)
Owing to her daily commitments, she wanted something small but consistent, manageable alongside work and family, and has only broken routine twice to protest outside the Egyptian embassy.
What convinced her to carry on was the death of journalist Anas, killed in an Israeli airstrike on a media tent outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
A poster of Anas Al-Sharif and his children sits in Wan Fatin Suriyani Wan Ahmad’s car. Owing to her daily commitments, Wan Fatin wanted something small but consistent and manageableA man of rare sacrifice
In April, Al Jazeera, citing data from the Cost of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute, reported that an average of 13 journalists were being killed each month in Gaza.
With 232 deaths so far, more than in both world wars, Vietnam, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan combined - it’s the deadliest conflict for journalists ever recorded.
Wan Fatin noted that Anas was the 238th journalist killed, stressing that people cannot stay passive in the face of genocide.
She described Anas as a man of rare sacrifice and courage - qualities she believes are almost extinct in today’s world.
“Despite knowing the constant risk of death in Gaza, Anas went out each day with unwavering determination.
“His killing was devastating, but it also became an awakening - the kind of death that compels others to stop, reflect, and confront reality,” she said, her voice heavy with grief.
She added: “Just as anyone would instinctively rush to help an injured child, so too should our human conscience be moved by the thousands of children killed under this campaign of violence.”
- Mkini

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