KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — An advocacy group for Palestine plans to distribute pictures of people killed in the war between Israel and Hamas during the Knoxville City Council meeting on Tuesday. The group, "Palestine Action and Liberation," also plans to wear black and speak for Palestine during the meeting's public forum.
The city council appearance is being called the "Pack Knoxville City Council for Palestine." On social media, the group also said they want Knoxville City Council to pass a resolution supporting a ceasefire in Gaza and issue a statement vowing to refuse any contracts or training with Israel.
The group will also ask for a statement acknowledging that Knoxville values the lives of Palestinians, and will ask for a statement "renouncing undue surveillance of Palestinians and allies by Knoxville Police Department."
The advocacy group specifically said council members Amelia Parker and Seema Singh spoke in support of Palestine in the past.
The group also said Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon had previously visited Israel. She traveled to Jerusalem in March 2023 as part of a program that brought a delegation of U.S. leaders to Israel named "Project Interchange." The American Jewish Committee previously said in a press release that the program is meant to give U.S. mayors a first-hand understanding of Israel's government and technologies.
As part of the program, the delegation of mayors was also brought to Ramallah, a Palestinian city in The West Bank. They also visited Tel Aviv and the border with Lebanon and Gaza.
Months after Kincannon's visit, war broke out in the region.
Hamas, a militant group elected to power in Gaza during the mid-2000s, launched an attack against Israel around the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, on Oct. 7. It was a death toll unseen since the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria — killing around 1,400, according to Israeli sources.
The United Nations said in 2019 more than half of all people in Gaza were under 18 years old, indicating they were not able to vote for Hamas.
The following day, Oct. 8, Israel declared war against Hamas and began bombarding Gaza. The defense minister promised a ground invasion as water, electricity and food access was caught off for the area and a million people were ordered to evacuate by Israel.
Since then, the UN said more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed and around 68% of them were women and children. Around 27,400 were wounded, according to the UN. The UN also said moving people wounded in the bombardment would require critical support, making evacuation "very difficult."
Over the past month, the UN said 135 attacks on health facilities were recorded in Gaza — "the highest number recorded in such a short amount of time." In that time, the UN reported around 1,200 Israeli fatalities — mostly from the Oct. 7 attack. The UN also noted that the estimate of fatalities in the war had been changed by Israeli sources. They also said the Gazan "humanitarian crisis" displaced around 1.6 million people or around 70% of Gaza.
According to the UN, Palestine's history and the history of war between Israel and several Arab nations stretches back decades into the 1940s, when the General Assembly called to divide Palestine into a "Jewish State" and an "Arab State."
The UN also said a period of time known as the Nakba, meaning "catastrophe" in Arabic, refers to when Palestinians were displaced as part of the division. Since then, hostilities have repeatedly flared in the region.