Dozens of protestors continued their calls for Alexandria to divest itself from Israel, decrying the tenuous ceasefire with Hamas that’s been in effect for a little more than a month.
Standing under the covered stage outside City Hall at Market Square on Tuesday night, members of Alexandria for Palestinian Human Rights and their supporters held a candlelight vigil and sang songs, read poems and asked the city to stop working with companies they accuse of war profiteering.
Organizer and group cofounder Alison O’Connell said that a number of federal contractors and companies throughout the region have worked with Israel to provide technology and other assistance during the years-long conflict.
“I know it’s a big ask in Northern Virginia, because this is a place where government contracts and those sorts of companies thrive,” O’Connell said. “I personally have been a government contractor at different points in my life, and I’m here now, and we built this community. It’s a small group of us tonight, but you’ve seen us. There’s a lot of us. I think there’s more of an appetite for it in our community than people would expect.”
Alexandria for Palestinian Human Rights has disrupted a number of official proceedings since the war started in Oct. 2023, including City Council meetings, fundraisers and events with Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.
The group also sent City Council a letter asking that the city divest itself from Israel. Signers include former City Council Member and Congressional candidate Mo Seifeldein, local book store Friends to Lovers, Grassroots Alexandria, and the Northern Virginia branch of Democratic Socialists of America.
Grammy Award-winning music producer Amy Horowitz, a senior fellow for Israel Studies at Indiana University, also spoke at the vigil.
“I have tried to mask my grief and anguish in prose that might reach the hearts and minds of our mayors and city council members,” Horowitz said. “I stand engulfed in grief that I cannot even fathom. Even as I experience it, I will never become numb to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people. Beneath my carefully worded statements, often delivered while fighting tears or rage, there is grief.”
The conflict in Gaza has resulted in more than 68,000 deaths, 170,000 people wounded and more than 1.5 million people in urgent need of food and shelter, according to British Red Cross.
