Nearly 50 students and community members gathered together to attend a vigil held at Cal State University Bakersfield (CSUB) to mourn and honor the Palestinian lives lost by Israel’s military on June 7.
Since Israel launched their attack in Gaza for the Israel-Hamas war last October it has been reported by Gaza’s Palestinian health officials more than 34,000 people in Gaza have been killed, two-thirds of them were women and children. The report was updated in May. Almost 15,700 Palestinian children have been killed since the war began, the Gaza Government Media Office reported.
The vigil at CSUB was hosted by the United Liberation Front and multiple people shared their thoughts and feelings about those who were killed. Papers were passed around with questions to reflect on and what to speak about for those who wanted to share with the crowd. The vigil also had photos of 20 people with their names and their faces that were recently killed.
When CSUB student Sarah Alame volunteered to speak she held out a photo of a good friend of hers who was killed in February by one of Israel’s airstrikes in South Lebanon. His name was Ali and was twenty-seven she said.
“Once he passed away everybody on social media was posting their photos with him [and] their stories with him. It was really hard to read through all of them,” Alame said.
Alame shared Ali was studying to be a nurse because he wanted to help people who were able to afford to go to hospitals.
“We find the community that’s willing to host these events, and vigils, and just give us the opportunity to amplify our voices. To stand up for people like Ali, who are innocent civilians, who are martyred, who don’t have the opportunity to stand up and fight back,” Alame explained how people can grieve for Palestinians within the community.
One speaker shared about what led her to care about the Palestinian cause: “I think for most of us, it’s the fact that we’re human. This does speak out on our humanity or lack thereof. Seeing the men, women, and children whose human rights are being actively infringed upon in front of our eyes, it’s heartbreaking,” she continued. “I know that if I feel alone in a lot of this, I can’t imagine what they must be feeling. Having this group of people show up shows them that they’re not alone here in Bakersfield.”
Omar Samara shared that he noticed that when last October first happened he thought nobody had cared. “I was just used to seeing something happened in Palestine… It’s like, oh, just the terrorists did it again,” he said.
But then he saw something had changed. People realized what is happening to people in Palestine is important and that is why people are standing up for them he explained. “People giving up their degrees, some of us have gone to jail. We’re willing to give up so much and to keep this fight going for month after month after month after month after month. We’re all still here. We’re all still fighting,” Samara said.
Last month CSUB students, faculty, and community members attended an hour-long march and expressed their support for Palestinians in Gaza and the college campuses throughout the nation that have been protesting. Where multiple students shared they were glad they had the opportunity to show support for Palestine other than on social media and hoped there would be more protests at CSUB soon.
For more information on future or upcoming pro-Palestine protests in Kern County visit the United Liberation Front website.
