![Ismail Abu Awad carries a Palestinian flag during Friday's rally in Cleveland. [Matthew Richmond / ideastream]](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/bc38bb1/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x1687+0+0/resize/840x472!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F5%2F21%2Fpalestinerally_web.jpg)
During a Friday afternoon rally in support of Palestine at the Free Stamp in Cleveland, demonstrators drove by on Lakeside Avenue waving flags and honking their horns. They poured into the Downtown Cleveland park for hours, eventually growing to a crowd of several hundred.
While Friday was the first day of a cease fire between Hamas and Israel in Gaza, demonstrators were not satisfied. Ismail Abu Awad is a Palestinian, born in Jordan. Abu Awad came to the protest Friday to call for Palestinian statehood.
“Did we just sneak in there yesterday? No, obviously we were there before and [Israel] came with the support from outside and now you kill our children and destroy our houses. And we want everybody to understand that,” Abu Awad said.
The most recent fighting in Gaza was sparked by threateaned evictions in a neighborhood of East Jerusalem where Palestinians have lived since Israel’s founding in 1948. The Palestinian group Hamas fired rockets into Israel, Israel fired rockets back. The fighting continued for 11 days, with more than 200 Palestinians and 12 Israelis killed.
At the Cleveland rally, chants of “End the Occupation” and “No Justice No Peace” were led by speakers who described the cease fire as changing very little for Palestinians living in Gaza.
“Israel is just occupying me,” said Maha Saqqa, a Palestinian at the rally with her husband and daughter. “My grandpa and my grandpa's grandpa, I am from Palestine. This is my country.”
A couple dozen police officers watched over the peaceful protest from the streets surrounding the Free Stamp. At one point, a group of officers on bicycles formed a line separating the crowd from three vocal supporters of Israel who were yelling insults.
“A war over Palestine would create a huge war, World War III, I believe,” said Abu Awad. “Palestine is not just land you can watch the news and hear about the fight in it and just let it go. If you want to control it by one type of religion and kick everybody else out, that’s going to cause chaos everywhere in the world.”
