‘Every day has felt like Oct. 7’: Gainesville residents still feel devastated by losses in Israeli and Palestinian communities
Under pouring rain, Pro-Palestinian protestors didn't falter. Their signs, banners and flags continued to wave Saturday afternoon as they marched down West University Avenue.
A crowd of about 50 people gathered at Gainesville City Hall to show support for Palestine a year after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict a year ago Monday. The crowd chanted as cars drove past, waving Palestinian flags and wearing keffiyehs, a traditional Arab scarf that has become a symbol of Palestinian support.
Laila Fakhoury, a Palestinian business owner, stood at the front of the crowd.
"From the River to the sea," she said. And the crowd responded: "Palestine will be free."
Saturday's demonstration, just hours before the Gators were to play in the nearby Swamp, has been one of many Pro-Palestine protests Gainesville residents have organized since Oct. 7, 2023.
Oct. 7 has impacted students across students at UF since the conflict began. On Oct. 9, panic erupted during a prayer vigil at Turlington Plaza for the victims of the initial attack on Israel. A student fainted during the vigil, causing students to believe shots were fired. The panic led students and attendees to run leading to a stampede that would injure 30 students.
A day after the stampede, former UF President Ben Sasse sent an email condemning Hamas and showing support for Israel to Jewish alumni. While he wrote that students' right to speech will be protected, he also wrote that the Constitution "protects the rights of people to make abject idiots of themselves." The sentiment meant to denounce any opposing views against the Israeli government.
Similar to universities across the country, protests in support of Palestine occurred on campuses. On April 29, six UF students and three others who were demonstrating at the Plaza of the Americas were arrested by university police and Florida State Troopers. The university then decided to not minimize the extent of the students' punishment, which included up to four years of suspension from UF.
The year-long Israel-Palestine conflict has left students, community members and religious leaders reflecting on the devastation and loss that has affected Jewish and Arab communities.
Jewish students like Liora Yehuday felt angry and scared when the news about Oct. 7 broke. She found herself gravitating toward Jewish and Israeli organizations at UF because they could understand how she felt. Overwhelmed with guilt that there was nothing she could do to help, she decided to do what she could to support her community through campus involvement.
Palestinian community members like Fakhoury pushed through her fear and grief to begin rallying support for Palestine in Gainesville. She took it upon herself to do what she could to bring awareness to the struggles of her community, both in Palestine and in the United States.
Her involvement in Pro-Palestine activism began in 2016 when she was a freshman at UF. She joined Students for Justice in Palestine, an organization dedicated to advocating for Palestinian liberation.
At the time, Fakhoury and one other student made up UF's chapter. "It's always been a pretty lonely road," she said. "It was very isolating to be the one person standing up."
But it was through Students for Justice in Palestine that she was able to find community by meeting other Palestinian students who understood what she was going through.
It was a sense of community she desperately needed after Oct. 7.
Fakhoury used to love the month of October. It's the month of her birthday, and in her opinion, the best month of the year. Now, it fills her with a sense of dread.
On the morning of Oct. 7, she was scrolling through her phone trying to plan her birthday. She came across a post from an Instagram page she followed called Eye on Palestine. The page shares the experiences of Palestinian people and began posting videos of victims and the destruction in Gaza after Israel's bombardment.
"I remember seeing that and feeling a pit in my stomach," she said.
She paused everything to reach out to her family in the West Bank. She waited by the phone and didn't hear back from her family for several days. Fakhoury learned that she lost several family members.
"Every day has felt like Oct. 7," she said. Fakhoury feels weighed down by how draining and exhausting witnessing all the loss and destruction from 7,000 miles away.
"I call it a genocide and an illegal occupation," she said. "It's happened to our grandparents, and now we're seeing it in our lifetime."
One year later, Fakhoury reflects on the words of her grandfather. "My grandfather used to tell me that Palestinians are a sacrifice," she said. "Palestine has been teaching the world a lesson. We're showing the world what cannot be tolerated."
Since the conflict began, she's noticed a shift in Gainesville. More and more people began to rally in support of Palestine. It led her to create a nonprofit organization called the Liberation Collective to organize information, host educational events on Palestine and unify activists in Gainesville.
"People that I would have never expected started to educate themselves about the occupation and stand up against the injustice," she said. "It was beautiful to see."
Liora Yehuday, 20, a third-year behavioral analysis psychology student at the University of Florida, has always been involved with Jewish and Israeli organizations on campus. She's an Israeli American Council Mishelanu fellow - a cultural organization for Israeli American students on campus — and a Hillel ambassador.
Born in Israel, Yehuday moved to Georgia when she was a baby. She has family that still lives in Tel Aviv. "I am not from a very Israeli or Jewish area," she said. "Having that community here was so imperative to my college decision."
She wanted to be connected to her Jewish and Israeli identity, a connection that only strengthened after the events of Oct 7.
Yehuday learned about what happened as she scrolled through Instagram a year ago. Then, her phone was flooded with text messages asking if she was alright. It was the morning of the holiday Simchat Torah, which celebrates the joy of the Torah, and Yehuday felt like she could no longer celebrate.
"I remember feeling numb," Yehuday said. She was heartbroken for the hostages and the people killed during the Nova Music Festival. She described it as "feeling everything all at once."
"As the Jewish community, we've gone through so much millennia after millennia," she said. "You feel this as a community. You feel grief for everyone."
Yehuday says she now feels more in tune with her Jewish and Israeli identity. "I'm still grieving the people that have died, thinking every day of the 101 hostages that are still help captive," she said.
"Many Israelis, if not the majority, are extremely unhappy with the way the war has unraveled," she said. "Everyone's goal is to bring the hostages home and end the war."
She wants to see peace and safety for the Palestinian people as well. "They deserve that too. No one can choose the circumstances they were born into. No one can choose to be born in Gaza versus Tel Aviv."
Yehuday won't let her fear of the unknown stop her from being vocal about her identity and the safety of Jewish students on campus and in Gainesville.
"The worst thing we can do is hide. We don't have to be loud, but I do think it's important to be together as a community," she said.
Rabbi Berl Goldman, the director of the Chabad UF Jewish Student Center, has been involved in serving Jewish students at UF for 26 years.
Goldman woke up early the day the conflict started to prepare the center for Simchat Torah festivities. As he unlocked the door for the day, a community member arrived at the door and broke the news of what was unfolding in Israel.
"The Jewish community is still in shock, even though it's one year later," Goldman said. "The world was changed forever since Oct. 7."
He found the devastation at the festival and the days after unimaginable. However, the conflict is still raging. Now that it's been a year, Goldman wants to highlight the heroes and honor the souls of the victims to bring unity to the Israeli and Jewish cause.
"It's a war of good over evil," he said. "Now it's about and against Jews again."
Since Oct. 7, he noticed what he calls a "renaissance of Jewish involvement" on campus. More students have attended Chabad's Torah classes. Even though many students he's met are scared, they are prouder of their Jewish identity.
He also cherishes the support students, faculty and the greater Gainesville community have shown for Israel. He hopes that more people, Jew and non-Jew, stand with the Jewish community. But he hopes they remain vigilant.
"Jewish people will not only survive, but we will thrive every time throughout history," he said. "We see the war is against the Jews in Israel. It may always start that way, but it never ends that way."
Dr. Mohammad Taqi, a physician and columnist for The Wire, a nonprofit news publication based in India, grew up watching Israel and Palestine's history since he was a child. He's involved with the local Muslim community at the Islamic Community Center of Gainesville and the Hoda Center to engage with community service and their medical clinics.
He read about the events of Oct. 7 first thing in the morning when he started his day reading the news. "Why this? Why now, and what next?" Taqi asked as he learned what happened.
He immediately knew that the response from Israel would be devastating. "I think the outcome that particular day was much more than any side expected," Taqi said.
Since the Israel-Palestine conflict began, he noticed a divide in the Gainesville community, especially after the campus protests. He was disappointed by UF when they tried to shut down peaceful protests.
"By these harsh techniques, they were trying to stifle the freedom of expression, the freedom to organize," he said. He was also disappointed in the general stance the U.S. took in support of Israel, instead of protecting the lives of innocent civilians in Palestine.
He described it as feeling let down by the policymakers who are meant to represent him and other constituents who don't agree with the stance the government has taken.
As the conflict continues, he hopes the U.S. decides to do the right thing and negotiate to end the destruction. "War is hell, whether it is a small war or World War II," he said. "Everybody feels on whichever side. These are common people picking up a gun and going to fight."
Taqi wants to continue using his voice to influence lawmakers and writers.
"We might be a pinprick on the skin of history," he said. "People of that region are resilient. They will rise from the ashes."
