About 500 people gathered at Goodale Park in Columbus for a “Free Palestine” protest and march Friday night.
Protesters stood in solidarity with Palestinians resisting the Israeli government and the dispute over land and honored those killed during the most recent war between Israel and Palestine. Organizers and protesters said the cease-fire, finalized Thursday, wasn’t a permanent solution.
“We cannot stand for ethnic cleansing any longer. We have to stand for Palestinian liberation. We have to stand for collective liberation,” Ahmad Abusharkh, a local organizer for the protest and a Palestinian, said. “Today we stand in the struggle for Palestinian liberation.”
Students for Justice in Palestine at Ohio State organized the event with other community members, according to the organization’s Instagram page.
Protesters circled the gazebo in the park to chant and listen to speakers before marching down High Street. After the march at sunset, some Muslim protesters prayed “Maghrib,” the fourth obligatory prayer out of five daily prayers in Islam, before returning to the park for a vigil with phone lights as a moment of relief and grievance to honor the Palestinians who have been killed in the Gaza Strip.
Israel and Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that controls the Gaza Strip, agreed to a cease-fire to halt the direct violence, such as airstrikes and bombings, in the Gaza Strip and Israeli cities Thursday, according to the Associated Press.
It comes after 11 days of violence, beginning May 10 when Hamas fired rockets toward Jerusalem. Violence erupted after confrontations between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa Mosque — where Muslims gathered to celebrate Eid and Ramadan. Police threatened to remove the protesters from the site — land that is holy to both Jewish people and Muslims, according to the Associated Press.
Over the past 11 days, Hamas and other militant groups launched over 4,000 rockets, and Israel carried out hundreds of airstrikes, according to the Associated Press. At least 248 Palestinians were killed with more than 1,900 wounded, and 13 Israelis were killed and hundreds injured, according to Reuters.
The Associated Press reported more than 56,000 Gazans fled their homes during the war, with Gaza’s public works and housing ministry telling the Associated Press that initial assessments found more than 17,000 residential and commercial buildings damaged or destroyed. The ministry also reported four mosques were destroyed.
The land has been fought over the last century, with several wars breaking out — the last one being in 2014, during which 2,251 Palestinians and 73 Israelis were killed, according to a 2015 report by the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry.
Pranav Jani, an associate professor of English and faculty adviser for SJP, led the crowd at Goodale Park with chants including, “No more apartheid, no more genocide.” He said the protests taking place for Palestine worldwide demonstrate “the power of the people”.
“This moment of a ceasefire as people said — thank goodness for people living under those bombs that there’s a little bit of a break, there’s a bit of a respite,” Jani said. “We know that what happened in the last 11 days, the atrocities of the last 11 days, that’s not the end of the problem, is it?”
Mariyam Muhammed and Sarah Szilagy contributed reporting.
Photos by Mackenzie Shanklin and Gabe Haferman.
