San Francisco Supervisors Move 1 Step Closer to Passing Gaza Cease-Fire Resolution

San Francisco lawmakers came one step closer to officially calling for a cease-fire in Gaza following a lengthy and tense public hearing on Monday.

In a 2–1 vote, a committee of supervisors advanced the cease-fire resolution, which also calls for an increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages and condemns antisemitic, anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic rhetoric and attacks. It now heads to the full Board of Supervisors for final consideration on Tuesday.

“I had hoped that by now, the assault on Gaza would have stopped, and it has not. In many ways, it has expanded with no end in sight,” Supervisor Dean Preston, who introduced the three-page resolution last month, told committee members on Monday. “Any thought or hope that this resolution would become mute has vanished. It is more relevant than ever.”

Preston’s resolution, co-sponsored by Supervisor Hillary Ronen, includes a specific reference to the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which Hamas fighters killed an estimated 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials. But the language does not explicitly condemn Hamas for its actions that day, nor does it overtly criticize Israel for its subsequent military campaign in Gaza.

In the two months since the attack, Israel has responded with a brutal barrage of air strikes and an ongoing ground invasion of Gaza, killing more than 23,000 Palestinians — the majority of whom are women and children — and displacing nearly 85% of the population, according to Gazan authorities.

Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who cast the only vote against the resolution, unsuccessfully pushed for it to include language that calls for “the surrender of Hamas” and that advocates for a two-state solution.

In response, Preston recently proposed amendments that more explicitly condemn both the Hamas and Israeli attacks. But the committee on Monday rejected those additions, instead advancing Preston’s original resolution.

Dozens of public commenters, including many doctors and health care workers, lined up for hours inside San Francisco City Hall on Monday to urge the Board of Supervisors’ Rules Committee — comprised of Dorsey, Ahsha Safaí and Shamann Walton — to approve Preston’s original resolution without considering any significant amendments.

“My family members in Gaza just relocated to a makeshift tent because their home in northern Gaza was reduced to rubble,” Zaynah Hindi, co-founder of Reem’s, a popular San Francisco restaurant, told the committee. “My co-founder has lost at least 40 members of her family in Gaza.”

At the nearly five-hour public hearing, community members and supervisors sparred over whether to add the language proposed by Dorsey, which would have also included identifying Hamas as a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.

“If we were to, in effect, reward terrorism by platforming grievances that underlie it, even if those grievances are just and right, we have to be explicit in our condemnation of acts of terror,” Dorsey said at the hearing. Omitting that language, he added, “would risk sending a dangerous and unthinkable message that terrorism works.”

Dorsey was supported by a handful of speakers, including some from local Jewish groups, who advocated for the failed amendment.

“I’m calling for some humility, to acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization,” one San Francisco resident said during public comment.

The majority of speakers on Monday, however, supported the resolution without any amendment.

More than 60% of U.S. voters said they support a cease-fire in Gaza, according to recent polling by Data for Progress.

“I am the son of U.S concentration camp survivors. I’m here to add my voice to that of thousands who, for the last three months, have demonstrated to demand a halt to the genocide,” said San Francisco resident Don Misumi. “We cannot afford to stand by and allow this to happen. The call for a cease-fire is the absolute minimum we can do. It is our moral obligation.”

San Francisco’s push for a cease-fire resolution comes after the approval of similar resolutions in a small but growing number of U.S. cities, including Richmond and Oakland. The debate over the issue in both East Bay cities attracted national attention and accusations of antisemitism after some public speakers defended Hamas’ actions, and lawmakers ultimately rejected amendments condemning the group.

A handful of other commenters also called on supervisors to focus on the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza and specifically urge the U.S. and other nations to provide more immediate aid.

The vast majority of Gaza’s roughly 2.2 million people lack regular access to food, and about half are now at risk of starvation, according to a recent United Nations report (PDF).

“Our tax dollars are being used to send weapons to Israel that destroy the health care system and harm health care workers and patients in Gaza,” said Rupa Marya, a UCSF professor of medicine and member of the Do No Harm Coalition. “These funds should be used to support health care systems both here and abroad, uplifting the health of all people.”

Correction (Jan. 9): The original version of this story incorrectly said that Supervisor Matt Dorsey called for an amendment condemning Hamas. In fact, Supervisor Dean Preston, who wrote the resolution, later proposed an amendment that would have condemned actions by both Hamas and Israel. That amendment was voted down.