JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Hundreds of people gathered at the Jacksonville Jewish Center Tuesday night to support Israel during their ongoing war with Hamas militants.
Just days into the war, more than 900 people are dead in Israel. In Jacksonville, hundreds sang and prayed for Israel.
“The song is about peace, that we all want to have peace together," Chai Gross, an attendee said. "The other song we sang was that our nation Israel is alive which is my name is Chai so, that song is always powerful to me."
Gross used to live in Israel. She spent the night praying for more than her old home after it came under attack by Hamas.
“My son, he’s 18," Gross said. "He graduated high school, he went to Israel to study for the year."
Her son's school is on lockdown, but she says he’s safe despite a rocket strike near his school.
“His counselor came running into the room [and said], 'everybody get to the bomb shelter!' Gross said." And it woke him up and he was terrified and he’s texting me, 'we have to go to the bomb shelter,' and in that moment, I was shaking, and I got nervous but then he texted me back afterwards [and said] they’re okay."
Gross says her son has decided to stay in Israel.
“I asked my son 'what do you want to do?' and he said, 'I do not want to come home, then they win, this is our country and I want to stay here to study' so, I’m very proud of him," Gross said.
Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters and other city leaders were in attendance. Waters spoke to the crowd and joined in as they sang and prayed.
Waters told the crowd that JSO is doing everything to keep the Jewish community safe in Jacksonville.
"We have a very robust intelligence unit that monitors things to make sure that our community stays safe and we're looking out for anything that may be problematic for us or we think may be problematic and we're doing some other things that I won't divulge but, we're doing the things that need to be done," Waters said.