JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — While ceasefire talks heat up overseas, a group of activists are turning the heat up on Jacksonville city leaders as well.
The Jacksonville Palestine Solidarity Network held a rally in front of Jacksonville City Hall Saturday. The group called on the city council to pass a resolution supporting a ceasefire.
It’s a group that’s been very vocal since conditions in Gaza started to deteriorate.
“Palestine will be free! Palestine will be free!” the crowd chanted.
“Beyond just me being Jewish, I’m a human being," said Ryan Delaney, one of the rally organizers. "I can’t sit idly by while something like this happens. Even if I wasn’t Jewish, I’d still be out here.”
Delaney says his great-grandfather was in a concentration camp during World War II before his family left Poland.
The images of starving families in Gaza are what have led him to get involved in Pro-Palestine rallies.
“You can see people in Palestine, in Gaza today, who look exactly like the people they took out of the concentration camps when they got liberated after World War II," Delaney said. "They’re skin and bone.”
Members of the Jacksonville Palestine Solidarity Network held pictures of Palestinians lost to the war, reading off their names during a candlelight vigil.
The Jacksonville city council passed a resolution in October, shortly after the Hamas attack on Israel, to stand in solidarity with Israel.
Delaney and the rest of the Jacksonville Palestine Solidarity Network are calling on the council to revisit that resolution.
“We want this city council to pass a ceasefire resolution. Palestinians have a right to live, they have a right to freedom," said Delaney. "They have a right to their own self-determination.”
The solidarity network will be at the city council meeting March 12 to make their case for a ceasefire resolution during public comment.