PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Just shy of the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and kicked off a cascade of conflict in the region, a Philadelphia group calling for a ceasefire mourned the deaths of some 34,000 Palestinians who have since been killed. Their names were laid out in LOVE Park on Saturday.
Members of Families for Ceasefire sang as they laid out reams of paper, page by page, listing the names of Palestinians who have been identified out of the estimated 41,000 people the Gazan Health Ministry says have been killed in Gaza to date.
The Israel-Hamas war will pass its one-year mark on Monday.
Hannah Mermelstein, an organizer with Families for Ceasefire, said the 34,000 are just those who are known to have perished in the war.
“Eleven thousand of those are children, more than 700 are babies who have been killed before their first birthday,” said Mermelstein, adding the focus of the group is to put the focus on Gazan families.
“Those are just a fraction of the deaths this year. Those are just the ones that are known.”
Onlookers cried, sang and prayed for the dead. On page after page of war victims’ names, they placed flowers, plush toys and, as the sky darkened, flameless candles.
Muslim, Jewish and Christian prayers were shared for the dead.
Mermelstein said the space taken up by so many names is important to help people begin to understand the magnitude of the war’s devastation, but the names add a humanity to the project.
“Each person is actually an entire world,” said Mermelstein.
“We are here to memorialize them. To mourn for the dead and fight for the living.”
The demonstration was also a time for organizers to question the role the United States has played in the conflict’s destruction and brutality.
“It’s ceasefire,” she said. “It’s also arms embargo. We need to cut off weapons to Israel.”