DEARBORN — While a cease-fire was announced Wednesday to end the eight day long deadly war between the Gaza Strip and Israel, many people say they’re not satisfied with the agreement between Israel and Hamas and real peace will only come after Israel’s occupation of Gaza ends. 

During a rally and candlelight vigil outside Dearborn City Hall on Wednesday in support of Gazans, many people complained saying they’ve witnessed similar agreements in the past, but the violence still continues to emerge. 

“I mean this is the same old story about the cease-fire. It has happened before, just give it some time and this could happen again. Shame on our government, we have to come up with a final solution and end the occupation,” said Dearborn Heights Community Organization President Hassan Bazzi. On Friday it was reported that Israel broke the cease-fire when it was blamed for killing a Palestinian man. 

A candlelight vigil was held in support of the many victims of Israel’s bombings of the civilian population in Gaza along with a rally. The ralliers called for an end to the occupation of Gaza by Israel, which has been described by many world leaders as an “open-air prison.”

A high number of the Strip’s 1.7 million people are refugees, and the descendants of those who were forced into exile from their homeland which is now Israel. The creation of the state of Israel was in 1948, it’s reported that 750,000 people were forced to flee their homeland as a result.  

According to a report from the United Nations issued this week 10,000 Gazans were displaced in the Strip within the past week of war, a large number Tuesday when the Israeli Army encouraged residents of the north to evacuate their homes. About 300 people attended the demonstration, and held up signs and chanted in support of the Palestinian cause. 

Many signs encouraged the U.S. to end its aid to Israel. One sign read, “ISRAELI TERROR Paid for by U.S.A, $ for our cities NOT for war!” Some of the chants included, “No justice, no peace,” and “Free, free Palestine.” According to reports 162 Palestinians were killed including 37 children, and five Israelis. 

“You have to stop the occupation. I know everyone here is protesting about Gaza, but I don’t feel it’s a Gazan purpose. I think it’s humanity. There are still people dying on both sides. I think the international community needs to take a step back and say this is not right what Israel is doing. They have the right to exist, but so do the Palestinian people,” said Michelle Iliazi of Dearborn.

Hussein Dabajeh of Dearborn said the blockade of the Gaza Strip must be lifted in order to have peace between the two regions.  “As long as Israel keeps attacking Gaza and keeps them trapped up inside a prison, there isn’t going to be peace. No group of people should be locked up like that,” Dabajeh said. The demonstrators held up Palestinian flags, and wore scarves featuring Palestine’s flag. 

Among the locals who turned out were students from the Arab Student Union from the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Israa Kenaan and her friend Mariam Charara say they’ve been spreading the word all week about the rally, hoping to get the youth to take a stand on the issue.

“We need to stand together and raise awareness about what is going on in other countries so we can get more people involved and shed light on the wrongdoings of this continued occupation. There is a lot of people in the community who try to leave it up to others to take control, but we need to all be in this together because what is going on over there is not a joke,” stated Israa Kenaan. 

State Representative Rashida Tlaib, who became the first American Muslim woman to serve on the Michigan Legislature in 2009 

Children also demonstrated peacefully in front of Dearborn’s city hall

was also present. Tlaib is of Palestinian decent and felt that despite the announced ceased fire, which occurred just a couple of hours prior, it was still important for her to turn out to the rally because she knows first hand of the Palestinian people’s struggle from stories that she hears from her family on a daily basis. Tlaib showed up to the rally with her children and husband. 

“As a person who has so many family members in Palestine, I’m always hearing about more children being killed and the continuous violent breakouts that occur. I feel like in many ways the people of Gaza are being tortured. They have no access to food and no freedom to travel or even get jobs. It’s a number of things that I hear from my family in Palestine. But what I love about the country of the United States is that we can be here to wave flags and show solidarity towards the Palestinian people. It’s important to teach people about this issue, which is why I brought my seven year old son, because I want him to experience the freedoms and privileges of this country as he remains educated about what continues to occur in Palestine,” Tlaib said. 

It was not just the Arab community that turned out strongly, but non-Arab locals were also seen standing in front of city hall participating in chants. 

Patrick Driscoll, a member of Occupy Detroit, a civil rights organization, says that he, along with other members, came out because they condemn the actions of Israel, and as a group they wanted to send a message against war. “Our tax dollars here in the United States are basically going to support this aggressive policy. If you look at the borders of Israel it continues to expand aggressively over the last 60 years and I don’t think we can justify it. We’ve poured billions of dollars into supporting that, and it’s time for our government to stand up and say no to this. The Palestinian people deserve their own state and the Middle East deserves some peace. The oil companies in the area that continue to form trouble and the possibility of a war with Iran are not good for the American people or the Palestinian people. We come here today to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people,” Drills said.