Santa Cruz County residents gather at courthouse to remember children and families killed in Gaza

With a shaky voice, Rolla Alaydi shared the stories and names of her 21 family members in Palestine who continue to face starvation and constant evacuations amid Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Beside her, a community member displayed the pictures of her relatives many of whom are young children. 

“I’m here to share the story of my family who was still trapped in Gaza, facing starvation, the air strikes and the endless evacuation,” Alaydi told Lookout.  “[I’m] also here to share the names and the stories of my family [members] who were killed in air strikes.” 

Alaydi, along with eight other speakers, stood Friday on the steps of the Santa Cruz County Courthouse as part of an all-day event to bring awareness to the thousands of children who have lost their lives as a result of the ongoing war in Gaza. 

Throughout the day, community members read the names of young children who have died in the war, along with their age. The nearly 80 attendees were greeted by a 15-foot-by-15-foot quilt, titled “Babies in Gaza Who Never Made It To Their First Birthday”; each block of the piece carries 20 names of Gazan babies who have died. 

Alaydi, born in Gaza, told Lookout that contact with her family in Gaza is scarce, and she is able to speak with them only when they have access to the internet. “I feel like I’m losing my mind if I go a week without hearing from them,” she said. 

As the only one of her siblings living in the United States, Alaydi, who is a teacher in Monterey County, said she has been trying her best to support her family for nearly two years since the war began. She even filed applications for immigrants seeking parole based on urgent humanitarian reasons for all 21 of her family members, all of which were denied. 

Alaydi was told by immigration officials that the applications were denied due to lack of evidence that her family is in evident danger, despite providing medical documents proving that several family members deal with illnesses such as cancer, epilepsy and diabetes, she said. 

By sharing her family’s experience, Alaydi said she’s rehumanizing them, and steering away from negative rhetoric people may have about Palestinian people. “They were sitting down doing nothing,” she said. “They are just children.”

Alaydi told the crowd on Friday that her 18-year-old nephew is merely skin and bones due to starvation. She also added that one of her nieces, who is 13, suffers from epilepsy with no access to medicine to keep her seizures at bay. 

Alaydi’s sister-in-law died following an airstrike just last month, shortly after being denied humanitarian parole, she said. Her family members are constantly moving from one place to another and tell Alaydi that there is “nothing safe” in Gaza. 

Stephen Zunes, director of Middle Eastern studies at the University of San Francisco, told the crowd that there is no place in the world more dangerous than Gaza right now. 

“Scores of people, including children, are dying every day from the bombs and from malnutrition. The hospital system has collapsed, offering little care for the wounded and sick,” he said. “Soldiers fire on Palestinians gathering at aid distribution sites, and yet, Gazans are banned from the United States.” 

Zunes referenced the Trump administration’s move to suspend approvals for all types of visas for Palestinian passport-holders. He added that the denial of humanitarian parole to Alaydi’s family members underscores what he calls racism and Islamophobia in United States policy. 

Zunes and other speakers, including Christine Hong, a professor of critical race and ethnic studies at UC Santa Cruz, criticized local and federal elected officials on refusing to acknowledge that the war in Gaza is a genocide and calling for a cease-fire. Others highlighted the mental health impacts of the war on Palestinian people and to those watching what’s happening from afar. 

Community members also plan to march from the courthouse to the clock tower in downtown Santa Cruz on Friday, and will continue to read names and ages of children who have died. The march will close out with Movement Ceremony: Embody Our Grief at the corner of Pacific Avenue and Cooper Street, where activists will be projecting images from the war onto a screen. 

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