Portsmouth, Durham councilors urged to support call for cease-fire in Gaza

PORTSMOUTH — A group of city residents — including several from the Middle East — implored the City Council to support a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.

Some of the residents who appeared at Tuesday night’s council meeting, also sharply criticized Israel, the United States’ top ally in the region, for what they called inappropriate military actions, including genocide.

Portsmouth resident Yussra Ebrahim, an organizer with Southern New Hampshire for Palestine, said she’s from Iraq but has lived here since she was 7.

“For months now, Israel has been waging a sadistic genocide against the Palestinian people for the explicitly stated purpose of ethnically cleansing the land,” she said during Tuesday night’s council meeting. “And none of this horror would have been possible without our tax dollars.”

Israel's attacks in Gaza have killed more than 29,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023, when Israel was attacked by Hamas, according to an Associated Press report, citing figures from the region's Health Ministry. More than 69,000 Palestinians have been wounded, the report states. The Health Ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its figures.

The report states Hamas' attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel. Many were sexually assaulted and about 250 people were taken hostage with 130 remaining captive and about 25% of them believed to be dead.

Ebrahim criticized what she called “Israel’s vicious brutality,” adding “we bear witness and hold the world accountable for the documented oppression that is the Palestinian existence.”

Ebrahim said the group pushing the council to pass the cease-fire resolution is “part of a much bigger movement," stating about 70 cities have passed the resolution.

Supporters of the resolution appeared before the Durham Town Council on Monday night, she said.

“Children are suffocating beneath the rubble because of our taxes, their limbs have to get amputated without anesthesia because of our taxes,” she said.

The resolution calls for President Joe Biden and the Congress to “demand an immediate and permanent cease-fire" by Israel and the release of all hostages held by both sides.

The resolution also calls for providing humanitarian aid to Gaza and ending all U.S. military aid to Israel.

The resolution points to what its supporters see as “seventy-five years of the Apartheid state of Israel’s military occupation of Palestine."

More Portsmouth voices call for cease-fire

Portsmouth resident Yasmin Alani is also originally from Iraq.

She and her family have lived in the United States for almost 30 years, and have received “so much love and support from the local community.”

She warned the council “every day that we allow to pass while this genocide is continuing, we’ll be witnessing the creation of more orphans, more widows, more maimed people, and more Palestinian families wiped off the face of the earth.

“It is very hard to watch yet another child ask a doctor if his amputated leg will grow again soon,” she added.

Abdullah Ahmad has been a Portsmouth resident for almost 20 years.

Ahmad, who said he was born in the West Bank and spent much of his childhood in a refugee camp, urged the council to “stop this genocide.”

He told the council his father and four grandparents “are buried in the largest refugee camp in Jordan.”

“They were dreaming to go back to their village in historic Palestine until the last breath they took,” he said. “I share this part of my history to make it clear that what’s happening to Palestinians has continued for over 70 years.

“Supporting a cease-fire means supporting an end to this bloodshed and demanding that our government takes a different approach on the Israeli occupation and apartheid system in Palestine,” he said.

Rabbi reacts to criticism of Israel

Reached Wednesday afternoon, Rabbi Berel Slavaticki of the Seacoast Chabad Jewish Center, said he was “shocked” to hear people use terms like genocide “when all Israel is doing is trying to defend itself. What a crazy world we live in that people would say things like that. All Israel wants to do is live in peace.”

Slavaticki stressed he is “not political,” but pointed to the importance of protecting “Israel from another Hamas terrorist attack.”

Slavaticki said he has been “extremely surprised” to hear people criticize Israel's actions following the terrorist attacks by Hamas.

“It just shows how much they’re misinformed,” he said. “It’s shocking and terrifying.”

Eliminating Hamas terrorists from the Middle East would “not only help Israel, but it will help the people in Gaza, it will help everybody,” he said.

“They’re using innocent people as human shields,” he added.

Portsmouth council has not scheduled vote on cease-fire resolution yet

The council took no action Tuesday night on the request to support the cease-fire resolution.

Nor did they discuss the group’s initiative or statements about Israel.

Mayor Deaglan McEachern told the speakers, “We’ve received your passionate pleas and speeches."

If the council decides to vote on the resolution, it would be posted before the meeting where it’s discussed, he said.

"We thank you for coming out and making your voices heard," he added.

Call for a 'powerful message'

During Tuesday’s council meeting, Mohammad Ebrahim, the general director of the Islamic Society of the Seacoast Area, also spoke in support of the resolution.

He said “a strong approval of this resolution will send a very powerful message.” He told the council to “be on the right side of history,” and added, “this is the morally right thing to do.”

City resident Rich DiPentima spoke in support of those seeking a cease-fire.

“The situation did not begin on Oct. 7. The situation has been going on for decades,” he said.

But DiPentima acknowledged the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 were “horrible.”

He pointed to the need “to stop this violence, to stop this genocide, and to stop this horror that’s going on in Gaza.”

He also called for “a two- state solution with the Palestinians and Israelis so these people can both go on and live in security and peace. This has gone on for way too long and it’s time for the civilized world to act and act now."

Durham Town Council votes to create a cease-fire resolution

On Monday night, the Durham Town Council “received 80 minutes of public comment on the same issue,” according to Town Administrator Todd Selig.

The council later voted unanimously to have Selig “craft a resolution for discussion and approval at the council’s next meeting that calls for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, and for the provision of humanitarian aid,” Selig said.

He is now in the process of crafting the resolution, he said Thursday.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth, Durham councils urged to support cease-fire in Gaza