Many people across Michigan spent the weekend marking Monday’s one year anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel and the war that continues.
Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in the 2023 attack and took another 250 hostage. They still hold around 100 captives, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not say how many were fighters, but says a little over half were women and children.
On Sunday morning, dozens of Jewish peace activists gathered in a park along the Detroit River.
“We’re here today to grieve every life that’s been lost over the past year, Israeli, Palestinian and Lebanese,” said Dana Kornburg, with the group Jewish Voice for Peace-Detroit.
The peace activists are calling on the U.S. government to stop supplying military weapons to Israel.
A U.S. arms embargo is strongly opposed by many supporters of Israel in Michigan.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday reiterated his call for a partial arms embargo on Israel, which had prompted an angry response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu had described such calls by Macron as a “disgrace.” Macron's office insisted that “France is Israel’s unfailing friend” and called Netanyahu's remarks “excessive."
Later on Sunday, Netanyahu's office said the two leaders had spoken and agreed to promote “a dialogue” on the matter. Macron's office called the discussion “frank” and said both leaders “accepted their divergence of views.”
