PHOTOS: Families call for Gaza ceasefire outside Michelle Ferreri’s constituency office

About twenty children and parents protested outside of Michelle Ferreri’s constituency office on Friday morning, demanding that the Member of Parliament call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The families arrived with signs, photographs, and paper dolls to represent the children who have been killed in the war. Last month, the United Nations stated that 2,360 Palestinian children and more than 30 Israeli children had reportedly been killed in the first weeks of the war. The numbers have climbed since then.

“I never thought I would see the day that the world would think it’s okay to kill and bomb babies and children like me,” said 11-year-old Chaska Pine in a press release issued by Hanah McFarlane, a mom and organizer of the demonstration.

Parents testing the doors to the constituency office found that they were locked. Speaking over the intercom, someone inside the office said that the families were welcome to exercise their democratic rights outside of the office. No one from the office came out to speak with the families. Two people with unrelated business at the office were allowed inside.

Ferreri’s Chief of Staff Emily McCullough did not say whether the MP was inside the office during the protest. McCullough issued a statement on behalf of Ferreri that read, in part, “It is urgently important to minimize the suffering and protect the lives of innocent Palestinians who had no part in these attacks, by supporting safe zones for civilians in Gaza and calling for a humanitarian pause to allow for humanitarian aid.”

Marissa Kidd, a parent of four who helped organize the protest, said a humanitarian pause isn’t good enough. “We must  listen to those who have been enduring this, to the voices of those on the ground, to courageous Jewish activists standing up against it, and join the call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the siege,” she stated in the press release.

McFarlane said she would like to continue the demonstrations until Ferreri “stands up in parliament and calls for a ceasefire.”

After spending about an hour outside of the constituency office, the families regrouped across the street at Fleming Park, where the children shared leftover Halloween candy with each other.

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