Avenue South next to Railroad Park in support of Palestine.
Roughly 400 people gathered near Birmingham’s Railroad Park on Sunday to support Palestine and protest Israel’s recent bombings in Gaza.
The protestors met at the intersection of 16th Street and First Avenue South and marched for several blocks. Palestinian flags flew in the air, and many protesters wore keffiyehs, black and white patterned scarves, or held handmade and printed signs with messages like “Resistance against occupation is a human right,” “End all U.S. aid to Israel,” and “Jews for a free Palestine.”
Organizations present included a group called Arabama, which organized the protest and march, and the Birmingham Democratic Socialists of America.
Since Oct. 7, when a group of Hamas militants invaded Israel and killed an estimated 1,300 people, Israel has responded with a military siege of Gaza – including airstrikes and blocking food, water, electricity and supplies from getting into the region where about 2.2 million Palestinians live. At least 2,600 people have died in Gaza in the past week, according to international reports.
Several speakers, including Amer Zahr, a Palestinian American writer and comedian from Michigan, led chants including “free, free Palestine,” “no justice, no peace,” and “killing children is a crime.” Some chants blamed Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden for the deaths of Palestinian children.
“The root of the problem of everything happening now is occupation. It’s the deprivation of people’s rights for 75 years,” Zahr said in an interview with AL.com. “It’s ethnic cleansing. It’s apartheid. Until those things get solved in a just way, things like this will keep happening in Palestine.”
During the protest, Zahr asked people who were refugees or their descendants from 1948, when the army of the newly formed state of Israel destroyed Palestinian homes and forced people to leave. Dozens of people raised their hands.
Elizabeth, a Birmingham resident, said she grew up hearing stories from her grandparents about how beautiful their life was in Palestine before they moved to Alabama.
Her family members, who she said were Christian, would tell her memories of being close with their Jewish neighbors, she said.
“It’s the government that’s been such a problem. It’s the government that’s been so oppressive,” she said at Sunday’s protest. “It’s all of our land. We all can share it.”
Elizabeth, who declined to share her last name over fear of backlash, said she came to the protest to show up for her culture and show others what it means.
“I know that the culture is being lost and destroyed, and I don’t want more of it to be destroyed,” she said. “There’s so much twisted information out there, that people just think Palestinians are hateful people. But we’re not. We’re loving people, we’re welcoming people, we want to show Alabama and the world that we just want safety for our people back home.”
The protest ended shortly after 4 p.m. as the crowd dispersed. A group of roughly 40 people lined up in the grass at Railroad Park to pray before they left.
