Just ahead of Tropical Storm Debby, and roughly 300 days since the latest conflict between the Israeli government and Hamas, about 30 activists marched around downtown Tampa last Saturday to protest the Florida-Israel Business Accelerator.
The coalition of demonstrators from organizations like Tampa Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (TAARPR), The Progressive Jewish Coalition of the Tampa Bay Area, Bay Area Dream Defenders, Tampa Bay SDS and more came together as part of an international day of action for Palestine.
To date, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health,nearly 40,000 people have been killed—including at least 15,000 children—have been killed since an Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed just under 1,200 people.
Last March, according to Reuters, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Territories told a special body that, “there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been met.”
Meanwhile, just last week, the UN warned of the further spread of diseases like Hepatitis A in Gaza as the population deals with ongoing water scarcity and inadequate waste and sewage management.
Piles of trash are accumulating in the scorching summer heat. Sewage discharges on the streets while people queue for hours just to go to the toilets,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, wrote.
