Bay Area Rabbis, Jewish Leaders Demand Israel Let Aid Into Gaza as Crisis Persists

Updated 1:35 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 12

A group of Bay Area rabbis and Jewish activists gathered Monday near the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco to call on Israel to cease military action in Gaza and facilitate humanitarian aid into the 25-mile strip.

The group of around 50 emphasized the mounting evidence of famine in the Palestinian territory, as well as the Israeli blockade that they say has prevented critical supplies of food, fuel and medical resources for the civilian population.

“We find ourselves here, in hope, in prayer,” the group sang and chanted. “All of the children rise!”

Rabbi Andrew Straus, one of the lead organizers of the rally, said the group had three main demands: food for Gaza, an end to the killing, and the release of all hostages.

Their actions follow a worldwide effort by other rabbis and Jewish leaders who this month signed a public letter asking that Israel allow extensive humanitarian aid into Gaza.

The letter calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “stop at once the use and threat of starvation as a weapon of war” and to guard against theft or control of that aid by Hamas.

As of Saturday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 212 people in Gaza have died of starvation, nearly half of them children. Gaza health officials estimate that more than 60,000 Palestinians, including around 18,000 children, have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in Israel and took over 200 hostage.

Near the consulate in San Francisco, the rabbis and leaders formed a line, bearing a sweeping yellow banner that read “Each Person is Created in the Image of God! Food for Gaza Now!”

“Israel continues in its relentless campaign of bombing,” Rabbi Cat Zavis from Beyt Tikkun Synagogue told KQED. “We are here today as rabbis from diverse backgrounds to say stop all killings.”

Zavis, a self-described anti-Zionist rabbi from Oakland, said this message especially applies to the five Al Jazeera press staffers who were killed over the weekend in a targeted strike by the Israeli military.

In a statement to KQED, a spokesperson for the Israeli Consulate said it “is deeply regrettable that in the 675 days since the October 7th Massacre, these protesters never called for the release of the Israeli hostages” — a point that the organizers explicitly denied.

She also said that “despite the Hamas disinformation campaign, there is food in Gaza and Israel continues to flood Gaza with food and humanitarian aid.”

Rabbi David Cooper at Kehilla Community Synagogue said those who gathered Monday would have stood directly in front of the Israeli Consulate for their demonstration if not for the barriers that went up in anticipation of the act of protest.

Cooper called them “the barriers that have been put up to try and silence us, but we won’t be silenced.”

Cooper said the group wrote a letter to Israeli Consul General Marco Sermoneta last week, asking to arrange a meeting there on Monday to discuss these issues. But, he said, the group received a polite response that Sermoneta was unable to meet.

“We will take advantage of that offer, but the situation in Gaza and in the West Bank has become too dire,” Cooper said. “Starvation in Gaza continues unabated every moment.”

He also mentioned his friend Awdah Al-Hathaleen, the Palestinian human rights activist who was denied entry at San Francisco International Airport in June, and subsequently killed by an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank come late July.

“His known killer is walking free,” Cooper said. “We are here under a holy obligation to take action.”

The group said they expected to be arrested for civil disobedience, but ultimately were not.

Aug. 12: This article was updated after one of the rally’s lead organizers clarified that the activists’ three main demands included the release of all hostages, pushing back against a quote from the Israeli Consulate.