SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Hundreds of people gathered at the San Diego State University campus on Monday afternoon to march in support of Israel after the attacks by Hamas over the weekend.
The group marched with Israeli flags and wore T-shirts that read “Fighting with Love” and “#EndJewHatred.” The peaceful walk started and ended at the Hillel of San Diego at SDSU, but not before the group marched around campus.
Families, SDSU students, and their allies showed up, they say, to show support for the Jewish community, many still in shock by what they are seeing on the news of the attacks.
“It’s like a nightmare, like we’re trying to wake up,” said a woman named Ortal Elkayam, who’s lived in the U.S. for the last 18 years.
The walk was organized by the Hillel of San Diego, the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity on campus, and Students Supporting Israel.
“I wake up to my parents calling me out, how we have family and friends that have been kidnapped, and this is the worst thing they’ve seen in their whole lives,” said Ori Lerer, a Hillel ambassador and president of Alpha Epsilon Pi.
Most who were marching said they either knew of someone killed, kidnapped, or missing after the attacks.
“I was nursing my baby in the middle of the night when I learned that my dear friends were murdered in their sleep, in their homes,” said Karen Parry, the executive director of the Hillel of San Diego.
Those marching expressed anger and pain against Hamas and called for peace to end the violence.
“I want people to understand that this is beyond a conflict of land, beyond Israel or Palestine, this a matter of humanity and war crimes,” said Lerer.
The organizers did have security on site as they marched through campus, but everything was peaceful from beginning to end.
