Gaza, near Egypt and bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, has a population of 1.8 million and is governed by the militant group Hamas, which rejects the existence of Israel.
“We are here in solidarity and support of the people in Gaza. People in Gaza have been brutally attacked by Israel for the last month,” said Ribhi Daoud, a rally organizer. “Thousands of people have been killed or injured by Israeli. Its onslaught, its crime, its massacre against innocent people in Gaza.”
Daoud went on to say he is against the United States helping Israel with weapons paid for by taxpayer money.
“We are here calling upon the people of Dayton and all people who can hear our voices, to stop, call your representatives (and tell them) to stop the massacre. Stop killing innocent men, women and children in Gaza,” Daoud said.
He noted that he believes up to 3,000 Palestinians live in the Dayton area.
Another rally organizer, Bassel Elnamara, said, “We are really outraged for that massacre and what’s going on is like genocide against innocent civilian people.” He went on to say that he is disappointed in the destruction of the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip by “Israelis.”
Rally attendees included a significant number of teens, who came holding signs and wearing handmade T-shirts expressing support for Palestinians.
Among them was 17-year-old Ayshia Mustapha. The West Carrollton High School student said she was moved by some graphic pictures she saw online by using the hashtag #FreePalestine on some online social media sites such as Twitter.
“There’s no reason to it. You’re killing innocent children. If children were playing on a playground just for fun and apparently Israel couldn’t see them and they bombed them,” Mustapha said. “And what did those children do? Israel calls them terrorists…The U.S. aids Israel and sadly, we’re trying to end that.”
She went on to say that what’s happening to the Palestinians in the Gaza conflict is genocide.
Cathy Gardner, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton, said members of the local Jewish community are outraged by the deaths of innocent people in Gaza and Israel, but that Israel has a right to defend itself against “terrorists.”
“All of humanity has a right to be outraged by the deaths of innocents in Gaza and Israel,” Gardner said in a statement Aug. 4. “However, the fighting is in Gaza, which is not ruled by the Palestinian Authority, but by Hamas, a terrorist organization who states in their charter the complete destruction of Israel and its Jewish residents.”
Gardner added, “In the face of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza raining down onto Israel’s civilians since the beginning of July, and the honeycomb of tunnels Hamas has built in Gaza to infiltrate Israel with the goal of kidnapping and murdering Israelis, Israel has no choice but to defend itself from these attacks.”
This story contains information from the Associated Press.
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