Amendments proposed for San Francisco supervisors Gaza cease-fire resolution
Hundreds of people, most wearing keffiyeh scarves to symbolize Palestinian nationalism and some displaying Israeli flags, attended the rules committee meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Monday.
For hours, they spoke passionately on the resolution calling for a sustained ceasefire in Gaza and about Supervisor Matt Dorsey's proposed amendments, which he presented Monday.
The resolution will be considered Tuesday by the full board of supervisors.
Dorsey's amendments, which included statements by President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressing concern over Israel's indiscriminate bombing, were met by jeers from the crowd.
"Some of our colleagues agreed with me that we needed to mirror President Biden's call for Hamas to lay down arms in this conflict," Dorsey said. "And some colleagues shared my view that the city and county of San Francisco should express its support and solidarity with the Biden administration, G7 nations, European Union and others for a two-state solution as the best hope for a just and durable peace."
Dorsey's new language describes Hamas as a U.S. Department of State designated foreign terrorist organization, that launched from Gaza into Israel "the deadliest, most horrific attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust of World War II."
Dorsey also proposed including graphic language sourced from reporting in the New York Times, stating that the Hamas attack "showed a pattern of rape, mutilation and extreme brutality against women, part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence."
According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, by Jan. 3 at least 22,313 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7. About 70 % of those killed are reported to be women and children. Another 57,296 Palestinians have been reportedly injured.
The resolution, first proposed Dec. 5 by supervisors Dean Preston and Hillary Ronan, was also updated with new statistics.
Dorsey sourced a New York Times report, which says that as of Jan. 5, almost all of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have been driven from their homes by Israel's nearly three months of airstrikes and evacuation orders.
Preston's original resolution addresses all parties as victims and steers clear of U.S. political agenda. It urges the Biden administration and Congress to call for a ceasefire, humanitarian aid, and the release of all hostages; and declares that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors condemns antisemitic, anti-Palestinian, Islamophobic, and all xenophobic rhetoric and attacks.
Prior to the meeting a group of Bay Area healthcare workers in medical scrubs demonstrated on the steps of city hall's rotunda. They placed a line of red cloth down the steps to represent the blood spilled in Gaza, and they protested Israeli bombing of hospitals and obstruction of humanitarian aid.
Inside the meeting chamber, members of the public urged the committee to vote in favor of the resolution as originally presented and reject Dorsey's proposed amendments. One family medical physician from San Francisco General Hospital held up a petition signed by 400 healthcare providers calling for an immediate cease fire and unrestricted medical aid.
"I asked supervisor Dorsey; do you want to lay out the atrocities of October 7? How many pages would it take to lay out the details of the atrocities that have happened in the 90 days since?" she said. "The rage you are hearing in this room, is the rage of a hundred years of being called a terrorist while being a victim of terrorism. Our tax dollars fund Israel, they do not fund Hamas!"
As of 2:30 p.m. the meeting was still underway.