Hundreds march around downtown Orlando to ‘free Palestine’ amid cease-fire
More than 200 people showed up Saturday outside Orlando City Hall in solidarity with the people of the occupied Palestinian territories after nearly two weeks of fighting between Hamas and the Israeli government led to a ceasefire.
Chants of, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” echoed throughout downtown Orlando as the crowd marched along Orange Avenue waving Palestinian flags, eventually ending up at Lake Eola Park and back at city hall.
“While a ceasefire was necessary to save young children from being murdered by Israel’s ongoing attacks, it does not mean that the 73-year occupation, oppression and apartheid against the Palestinian people has ended,” said Rasha Mubarak, an organizer with the Florida Palestine Network.
The rally capped a week of actions by a group of local activists, who last week held another much larger march around Lake Eola calling for the liberation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel for decades.
Mubarak also organized two letter drops to the offices of U.S. Reps. Val Demings and Stephanie Murphy as protests against the U.S. government, which send billions of dollars in aid annually to Israel. Meanwhile that government, activists say, conducts abuses in the territories, including most recently forced expulsions of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah, an East Jerusalem neighborhood. On Saturday, the Orlando rally was attended by members of the local Colombian community and activists who were present last year during the Black Lives Matter protests as a show of solidarity.
It appears to be a trend in recent calls for peace between Israel and Palestine, which NBC News noted has seen an increase around the country in number and size compared to previous years.
“Our liberations depend on one another, our destinies are tied together,” said David Caicedo, a local activist working with Colombians protesting against violence there perpetrated by its government amid mass rallies against tax increases while the country continues to reel from the COVID-19
pandemic. “From Colombia to Palestine, may all our people be free.”
Mubarak added, “As co-strugglers, it’s interconnected with how they’re brutalizing Black, brown, indigenous queer folk within U.S. borders and outside U.S. borders.”
The most recent round of fighting, sparked by an Israeli raid of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, left
more than 250 dead, the majority of whom were Palestinian, according to the Associated Press. On Friday, the area around the mosque was attacked by Israeli soldiers as worshippers and others celebrated the ceasefire, CNN reported.
Associated Press’ offices in Gaza were bombed in the fighting, which the Israeli government said was being occupied by Hamas though
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said he was not presented evidence.
But following the most recent ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed a new wave of force if provoked, warning, “If Hamas thinks we will tolerate a drizzle of rockets, it is wrong.”