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Live updates: Massachusetts reacts to Israel-Hamas war
Many with Massachusetts ties are feeling the impacts of the war.
Israeli forces severed northern Gaza from the rest of the besieged territory ahead of an expected push into the dense confines of Gaza City this week. Palestinians held a mass funeral on Monday, Nov. 6, for dozens of people killed in strikes in the south, where Israel has urged people to seek refuge.
Troops have entered the city, Israeli media reported, and militants who have prepared for years are expected to fight street by street using a vast network of tunnels.
Casualties will likely rise on both sides in the month-old war, which has already killed more than 9,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Some 1,400 Israelis have died, mostly civilians killed in the brutal incursion by Hamas that started the conflict. Both tolls are unprecedented in decades of fighting.
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Some 1.5 million Palestinians, or around 70% of Gaza’s population, have fled their homes since the war began. Food, medicine, fuel and water are running low, and U.N.-run schools-turned-shelters are beyond capacity, with many sleeping on the streets outside.
— Associated Press
The war has sent reverberations around the globe, affecting many in Massachusetts. Follow here for live updates.
Suffolk DA’s office investigating graffiti found on BU Hillel building (Nov. 10)
A window at BU Hillel, a Jewish student organization at Boston University, was reportedly vandalized with the phrase “Free Palestine” in permanent marker, BU Today reports. Both the Suffolk County DA’s Office and Boston University police are investigating the incident.
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The graffiti was found by Hillel staff Tuesday evening on the building, which the student publication reports holds religious services as well as operates as a community center. Located on the inside of the window that was defaced was a sign that read “We Stand with Israel.”
In a statement, a Suffolk DA spokesperson called the graffiti a hate crime — not because of the message itself, but where the message was placed.
“This defacement was a targeted act and we will work closely with Boston University police to identify, arrest, and prosecute the person responsible,” James Borghesani, said in a statement to The Boston Globe. “Our message is clear: hate crimes in any form are intolerable and anyone charged with committing them will pay the consequences.”
Pro-Palestine crowd protests during VP Kamala Harris’s Boston visit (Nov. 9)
Hundreds of people gathered in downtown Boston amid freezing rain to protest Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration’s decision to help fund Israel’s war effort.
Harris was in town to attend a Democratic National Committee fundraising event at the Ritz Carlton. A crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators showed up outside the hotel Thursday afternoon, waving flags and signs and chanting towards the building. A section of Boylston Street was closed down with metal barricades, The Boston Globe reported.
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Harris was labeled a war criminal, accused of not allying with other people of color. “How many kids did you kill today?” and “Israel is a terror state” were among the messages that the crowd chanted.
“Vice President Kamala Harris, you are afraid of the people,” demonstrator Amrita Dani said during a speech, according to the Globe.
“It’s the only power we can have, so it’s all we can do,” said demonstrator Kim Andrews. “We have to use our collective voice.”
Some signs showed Harris on a fake “wanted” poster, while others read “we charge you with genocide” and “let Gaza live.”
Anti-Israel graffiti closes Worcester Starbucks, angers Jewish community (Nov. 9)
A Starbucks in Worcester was temporarily closed after an unknown person vandalized it with pro-Palestinian graffiti.
The messages were found spray-painted on the exterior of the coffee shop at 1 East Central St. early Wednesday morning, The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported.
“Free Palestine” was scrawled across a drive-through menu, “Free Gaza” was written on a drive-through window, and “You Make Drinks 4 Genocide” was painted on another set of windows, according to images posted to Facebook. Some of the messages were repeated on other walls, and at least one window could be seen boarded up.
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Worcester Police say they are investigating the incident as an act of vandalism and as a hate crime. They released an image taken from surveillance footage that shows a suspect. They appear to be wearing a hooded sweatshirt or jacket and a mask. Anyone with information about the incident is urged to contact Detective Sergeant Sean Riley by calling 508-799-8651 or sending an email to [email protected]. Anonymous messages can be submitted online.
“We are angered by this recent antisemitic vandalism and the other acts of hate that have been directed at our community. We call on all community leaders and elected officials to condemn this and other acts of hate and vandalism. Too often hateful rhetoric fosters physical acts of violence and we must stand united in calling for swift action and a stop to incitement,” the Jewish Federation of Central Massachusetts said in a statement.
Notes taped to the outside of the store Wednesday said that it was temporarily closed and that it would reopen as quickly as possible, according to the Telegram & Gazette. A worker was reportedly seen cleaning the building Wednesday afternoon.
An employee who answered the phone there Thursday morning said the shop was open again for normal business hours. Online ordering was also available for that Starbucks location Thursday morning.
Activists interrupt student loan press conference at Boston City Hall, call for ceasefire in Gaza (Nov. 7)
A student loan forgiveness press conference with U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren at Boston City Hall was interrupted by a group of activists calling for a ceasefire in Gaza on Monday, the Boston Herald and other media reported.
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The press conference, hosted by Attorney General Andrea Campbell and Mayor Michelle Wu, was about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program and was unrelated to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
Pressley took the podium as activists directed calls for a ceasefire at Warren, requesting she publicly offer her support. Warren was on her way out when the chants began, the Herald reported.
“Senator Warren, we ask for a cease-fire in Gaza,” one of the activists said, as seen in footage posted by Boston 25 News, followed by chants of “cease-fire now.”
The activists briefly thanked Pressley, who recently tweeted voicing support for the march in Washington D.C. where thousands gathered to demand a ceasefire. Pressley has signed onto a House resolution calling for a ceasefire as well.
The activists who interrupted Pressley were thanked by the congresswoman, though she didn’t directly address their demands, the Herald reported.
“This is City Hall. This is your government. This is the people’s house,” Pressley said at the conference. “We’re grateful for your activism. And we are here today to talk about an issue of great consequence to our shared constituents.”
Warren did not respond to the activists before leaving.
Pressley responded to the conference events in a statement shared with Boston.com on Tuesday.
“Peaceful protest is a core function of our democracy,” Pressley wrote. “I’m grateful to the activists who have been making the case in cities across the country for a ceasefire to save civilian lives.”
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Pressley wrote that with the death toll of Palestinian civilians rising, President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken “must push for a ceasefire to save civilian lives and facilitate the return of hostages, the evacuation of Americans in the region, and the swift delivery of humanitarian aid.”
The chants of “ceasefire now” continued, according to the Herald, leading police to escort the activists out. No arrests were made.
Warren has yet to take a stance on the war, with hundreds of former staffers from Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign asking that she publicly call for a cease fire in an October letter sent to the senator.
Meeting to decide whether to fly Palestinian flag in North Andover is postponed due to safety, space concerns (Nov. 7)
A public meeting over whether to raise a Palestinian flag on the Town Common in North Andover was rescheduled due to threats of litigation and safety concerns.
WCVB also reports that officials said they needed a bigger venue to conduct the meeting.
A resident, who NBC10 reports is a Bentley University student, filed a permit to fly the flag from Nov. 7 to Dec. 7. An Israeli flag has been up in the same location since the week following the Hamas attack on Israel.
“This flag has been up for one month now and what we’re asking for and what my daughter submitted the petition for is to have the other flag raised,” Tamer Khayal said.
The Merrimack Valley Jewish Federation, a Jewish community and cultural center located in Andover, has urged its members to protest the permit.
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“The safety of our Jewish community, our heritage, and our history is being challenged at an alarming rate,” an email said to its members. “We cannot allow additional negative attention and risk the safety of our citizens.”
The meeting was rescheduled to Nov. 13 and in a larger space at North Andover High School.
Brandeis defunds campus SJP chapter, becoming the first private college to do so (Nov. 7)
Brandeis University announced on Monday it will de-recognize and defund its campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine because it “openly supports Hamas, a terrorist organization,” according to the university.
“SJP has called on its chapters to engage in conduct that supports Hamas in its call for the elimination of the only Jewish state in the world and its people,” a Brandeis spokesperson wrote in a statement to Boston.com. “Such expression is not protected by Brandeis’ principles of free speech. Students are welcome to express their support for Palestinians in a manner that complies with our rights and responsibilities.”
Brandeis SJP had planned to hold a vigil Monday night to mourn the thousands of Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7. The group had to cancel the vigil after Brandeis said it was no longer eligible to receive university funding, hold on-campus events, or use the university’s name, The Boston Globe reported.
Since the war in Israel and Gaza broke out in October, Brandeis SJP has been participating in local pro-Palestinian rallies and lobbying the university to condemn what it calls a “genodice and ethnic cleansing” in Gaza by Israel, according to the group’s Instagram posts.
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Also on Instagram, the group has asserted its “unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian resistance in all of its forms,” including armed resistance.
Brandeis SJP called the de-recognition unjust and “purely racist” in a statement posted on its Instagram account. The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Boston.com.
Brandeis, a secular university founded by the American Jewish community in 1948, is the first private university to defund its campus chapter of SJP. The decision to do so comes after the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (which is not affiliated with Brandeis University) wrote to college presidents nationwide urging them to investigate their campus SJP chapters for potentially providing material support to Hamas.
The American Civil Liberties Union has said there is “no evidence” to support the claims that SJP is materially supporting terrorism. “Without that connection,” they wrote, “their advocacy is fully protected by the First Amendment.”
In response to the letter from the ADL and the Brandeis Center, the ACLU wrote its own open letter to college presidents urging them not to punish pro-Palestinian student groups for exercising their right to free speech.
According to Brandeis’s student newspaper, the Justice, students and community members attended the Monday night vigil for Gaza even though SJP had already been de-recognized and officially canceled the gathering. At the vigil, attendees reportedly expressed frustration that Brandeis would stifle an event dedicated to mourning.
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On the same day as the de-recognition decision, Brandeis President Ron Liebowitz wrote in a Boston Globe op-ed that college campuses have tolerated antisemitism for “for far too long,” promising to crack down on violent and hateful speech on campus.
He did not mention SJP by name, but wrote that “chants and social media posts calling for violence against Jews or the annihilation of the state of Israel must not be tolerated.”
“Universities cannot stop hate speech, but they can stop paying for it,” Liebowitz wrote. “Brandeis will ensure that groups that receive privileges through their affiliations with the university, including using its name, will lose their affiliations and privileges when they spew hate.”
Medway family lands at Logan after being trapped in Gaza (Nov. 7)
A Medway family of three who were trapped in Gaza since Hamas attacked Israel last month finally returned home on Monday, The Boston Globe reports.
A reporter from the paper was at Logan International Airport when Abood Okal, Wafaa Abuzayda, and their 2-year-old son, Yousef, were embraced by friends once they walked through the international arrivals gate.
“It took too long, frankly, but I’m very relieved for them. … It’s hard, both for them and anyone who’s been helping them, that they’re leaving family members and there are tons, hundreds, thousands, millions, of other innocent people who will not get the same opportunity that they had to leave,” said Sammy Nabulsi, who was at the airport to greet them amid their return.
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Nabulsi is also a Boston attorney and helped the family by advocating for their safe escape from Gaza and arrival to the U.S. That involved weeks of spreading their story to media and working with the State Department.
For the Okal family, their harrowing journey involved nearly running out of gas as they traveled through Gaza, waiting in line for hours just for bread, desperately searching for water, and not being allowed through the gate to Egypt multiple times.
They still have family trapped in Gaza, according to the Globe.
Hundreds gather in Brookline to support Israel, and in Braintree for Palestinians (Nov. 6)
Multiple demonstrations and gatherings occurred over the weekend with Boston residents showing their support for Israel and Palestine and mourning the deaths of civilians on both sides.
In Brookline near Coolidge Corner, The Boston Globe reports that hundreds gathered on Sunday wearing the colors of the Israeli flag and to bring together the Boston area’s Jewish community amid a rise in anti-Semitism.
Demonstrators also handed out flyers that showed the faces of the hostages taken by Hamas.
The demonstration in Brookline occurred just after and a few blocks away from a gathering of dozens of Jewish and Muslim people, who prayed for the civilians in both Israel and Gaza.
“We all want the same outcome: which is people to be able to live side-by-side, [to] peacefully coexist,” said Jen Wofford, a Jewish Brookline resident who put together the event at the Brookline Public Library’s Coolidge Corner Branch.
That same afternoon, about 150 people gathered in Braintree outside the town hall to show support for Gazans. In chants, the demonstrators also called for the U.S. to stop sending aid to Israel.
9 arrested at Cambridge protest outside of Israeli defense contractor after alleged vandalism, assault (Oct. 31)
Nine people were arrested during a protest outside of Elbit Systems, an Israel-headquartered defense company that has an “innovation center” office in Cambridge, according to the city’s police.
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The press release from the City of Cambridge didn’t say what the demonstrators were protesting, but NBC10 Boston reports that people held signs calling for Elbit to close down, they accused the company of profiting from genocide, and one sign had the Palestinian flag on it.
Cambridge officials said the protest, which took place around 10 a.m. Monday, was initially peaceful. Around 200 people were in attendance and were barricaded outside of the business near Bishop Allen Drive.
But more than an hour later, some of the protesters allegedly moved beyond the barricades and vandalized the building. They also threw “smoke pellets,” eggs, and other objects at the building and police, authorities said.
Police tried to place under arrest the people whom they say they witnessed vandalize the business, but that’s when some in the crowd allegedly assaulted police officers, knocking one down on the ground and hitting another with a “smoke pellet.” Officials said that one officer used pepper spray on the crowd.
The nine arrested face one to four charges each, including assault and battery of a police officer, possessing/throwing an incendiary device, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct. They were scheduled for arraignment Tuesday in Cambridge District Court.
Health care workers seeking cease-fire stage ‘die-in’ at Warren and Markey’s offices (Oct. 31)
A group of healthcare workers staged a “die-in” outside the Boston offices of Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey Monday, urging the lawmakers to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
About 25 members of Healthcare Workers for Palestine gathered outside the John F. Kennedy Federal Building on Sudbury Street, The Boston Globe reported. They started by chanting “shame on you” directed at Israel, President Biden, Warren and Markey.
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Then the “die-in” began. The protesters, some of whom were covered in red paint to imitate blood, laid on the sidewalk under a banner that read “Health care workers against genocide,” according to the Globe. They were quiet as they listened to a recording listing the names and ages of dead and missing Palestinians in Gaza.
“People are drinking water contaminated with sewage and babies under six months can die if they drink water with too much salt in it,” Dr. Lara Jirmanus, a family doctor in Cambridge, told the Globe. “Women are dehydrated and can’t breastfeed their babies.”
As the Israeli military slowly surrounds Gaza City in the northern part of the enclave, officials are telling the administrators of a hospital there to evacuate. Thousands of Palestinians are taking shelter in the hospital, NBC reported, and airstrikes have hit less than 200 feet from the facility. Palestinians officials at the hospital say many patients simply cannot be moved.
Threatening hospitals throughout Gaza is the lack of fuel making its way into the enclave. While some food , water, and medical supplies are flowing into the south through Egypt, fuel shipments have remained blocked. Israel has said that this is because it could be used to power the weapons of Hamas. Six hospitals in Gaza have been forced to close due to fuel shortages, CNN reported, and many more are on the brink of collapse.
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“People are being killed with US tax dollars,” Lianet Vazquez, a student at Harvard Medical School, told the Globe. “Shame on you.”
At least six protesters were arrested earlier this month after entering the JFK building and refusing to leave. The protesters were Jews calling for de-escalation and a ceasefire.
Harvard president convenes antisemitism advisory board (Oct. 30)
As Harvard University continues to face criticism over the administration’s response to the Israel-Hamas war and a student group letter that blamed Israel’s government for the violence, school president Claudine Gay announced the creation of an antisemitism advisory board.
“As we grapple with this resurgence of bigotry, I want to make one thing absolutely clear: Antisemitism has no place at Harvard,” Gay said Friday at a dinner hosted by Harvard Hillel, The Boston Globe reports. “For years, this university has done too little to confront its continuing presence. No longer.”
Advisers in the group include faculty, members of Harvard’s administration, students, alumni, and Jewish religious leaders.
Harvard also created a task force to help students who were doxxed and harassed online for being linked to the more than 30 student groups who signed the controversial letter, The Crimson reports. The task force will be in effect until Nov. 3, when Harvard’s administration will reassess what needs to be done to help the students impacted by online harassment.
Medway family trapped in Gaza running out of food and water (Oct. 30)
A family of three from Medway that has been trapped in Gaza since the war between Hamas and Israel began on Oct. 7 is urgently searching for food and water as they await safe passage out of the enclave.
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Abood Okal; his wife, Wafaa Abuzayda; and their 1-year-old son, Yousef, were in Gaza to visit Abuzayda’s parents earlier this month. What was meant to be a joyous trip — to introduce Yousef to his grandparents — has turned into a nightmare.
“They have ran out of both clean drinking water and their back-up salt water today, and have been on the hunt for water,” Sammy Nabulsi, an attorney and family friend, told The Boston Globe Sunday. “They also told me they stood in a line for six hours today just to get some bread to eat.”
The family has been sheltering in southern Gaza, hoping a deal can be brokered that will allow them to move through the Rafah crossing into Egypt. Amid mixed messaging from U.S. officials, the family traveled to the crossing multiple times over the past few weeks, but still remain trapped.
An update Sunday from the State Department offered little clarity.
“The military conflict between Israel and Hamas is ongoing, making identifying departure options for U.S. citizens complex,” it said. “We anticipate that the situation at the Rafah crossing will remain fluid and unpredictable. If you assess it to be safe, you may wish to move closer to the Rafah border crossing — there may be very little notice if the crossing opens, and it may only open for a limited time.”
The family is staying with about 40 other people in a house about 10 minutes from the border crossing, the Globe reported.
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They have been living off canned tuna and fava beans, Nabulsi wrote in a piece for MSNBC. Their cooking oil is gone, and so is the possibility of hot meals. When they run out of drinking water, the family has been relying on salt water. Airstrikes continue to rain down throughout Gaza, including within 900 feet of their shelter. All the walls are cracked, and the windows and doors were blown out by a nearby blast.
Previous live updates can be found here.
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