Members of Sarnia-Lambton's Palestinian community gathered outside city hall on Christina Street Friday.
Spokesperson Obadah Shadid told Sarnia News Today they're representing human rights and want to express their position on what is going on in Palestine at the moment.
"We see on the TV many disturbing images of civilians dying and we're unhappy with the Canadian position on this," said Shadid. "The whole global society has given a green light for Israel to commit atrocities and we'd just like to say that there are a lot of civilians there. There's 2.38 million civilians living in that city that the world has judged and deemed to be unfit to live anymore, for whatever reason."
Shadid said they want to show civilians who have been judged unjustly that they have supporters.
"I think there's at least 11 to 15 families in Sarnia, many of which have unfortunately lost contact in the last two to three days with most of our family and friends in Palestine. We're just coming together and trying to muster as much support for each other as possible," Shadid said.
He said they just want to share their side of the story in a peaceful way.
"Speak to people one on one, undo a lot of the damage that many of the media outlets have done to the Palestinians and basically just say, 'Hey, we're here. If you guys want to come and talk to us, you're more than welcome to come.' If you want to hear our side of the story, you're more than welcome to come and hear our side of the story and get to know us as humans," Shadid said.
A conflict between Palestinian people and Jewish people has persisted in the Middle East since the establishment of Israel in 1948.
A surprise attack against Israel on October 7 by Hamas has since prompted intense Israeli retaliation and worldwide demonstrations in solidarity of both sides of the conflict.
Sarnia News Today was not aware of any similar demonstrations planned locally by the Jewish community.
