HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla — About 200 people marched in front of the University of South Florida on Wednesday chanting, “Free Palestine.”
The group called the demonstration an Emergency Rally for Gaza.
Ali Ibrahim says this is to raise awareness for innocent Palestinian civilians who are living in fear.
“Bombs are being dropped on houses, bombs are being dropped on hospitals, bombs are being dropped on churches,” Ibrahim said.
As government officials from around the world continue to speak out about the war between Israel and Hamas, Palestinians in Tampa Bay like Isam Jaber say this is an effort to give a voice to civilians.
Jaber said that his family was pushed out of their home when he was a child and became refugees.
“They don’t give any damn about Palestinian lives and the Palestinian blood. Nobody speaks up against it,” he said. “It’s time for people to wake up and try to find a solution to these people.”
Jaber says that issues in Gaza started long before the deadly Hamas terror attack earlier this month.
“Life is miserable over there, Palestinians have no rights,” Jaber said. “I think that the Palestinians and the Americans have something in common. We are both controlled by Israel.
"The only difference is we Palestinians know we’re under occupation and we’re controlled by Israel and we’re doing something to fix it. But the Americans, they really don’t.”
As marchers prepared to take their demonstration to the front gates of USF, Ibrahim told 10 Tampa Bay that he has heard horror stories from family members overseas as the deadly conflict continues.
“I have family members going to funerals every single week,” he said. “These are just regular people like me and you living their day and day when they don’t know when they’re going to get electricity next.
"They don’t know when they’re going to get water, food. Mothers, wondering where their children are. They know that their children are dead, but they’re waiting for rubble to be searched through so they can get an actual confirmation.”
While tensions rise in Gaza, Palestinians in Tampa Bay are hoping to prevent more innocent lives from being caught in the crossfire.
“You look at pictures of Gaza today, it’s rubble,” Ibrahim said. “We just want peace. We just want to be able to be back in our homes, to wake up not wondering if we’re going to die the next day.”
Unlike the demonstrations seen in the past few weeks near USF, there weren’t any groups counter-protesting Wednesday afternoon.
On Monday, Israel Defense officials showed journalists 43 minutes of videos and images from the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, said to be compiled from security cameras, militant body cameras and victims’ dash cams.
CBS News reports that the content allegedly showed unarmed people being shot by Hamas fighters at close range, as well as hostages being tossed into a pile in the back of a pickup truck.
António Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, has called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. He condemned the massacres carried out by Hamas militants in Israel on Oct. 7, but also said, "Those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people."
As of today, Israel says Hamas' attacks have killed more than 1,400 people and left 5,400 wounded. More than two weeks of Israel's retaliatory airstrikes on Gaza have killed nearly 5,800 people and injured almost 16,300, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas.