COTABATO CITY (MindaNews / 17 October) — A huge crowd of Bangsamoro residents from this city and nearby Maguindanao provinces gathered for a peace rally here on Monday to show solidarity to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip under attack by Israeli forces.
The peace rally, dubbed “Bangsamoro Rally for Free Palestine,” started with a motorcade with the flags of Palestine waving over as the participants snaked through the downtown streets of this city.
Women, children and students joined the peace rally. Some of their faces were painted with the Palestinian flag, as others were seen turning emotional and shedding tears during the prayer rally.
“We are here to show sympathy to Palestine and condemn the Israeli government for killing innocent people, including children. The atrocities must stop now,” Nesreen Ebrahim, representing the Bangsamoro women sector, said in a tearful speech.
Ben Hussein of the Bangsamoro Action Against Injustices (BAII), the lead organizer of the event, said the peace rally was meant to show solidarity for Palestine.
Reuters reported that the human toll in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank reached 2,383 Palestinians dead and 10,814 injured as of Sunday morning, citing Palestinian health ministry sources.
Israel launched relentless bombings and implemented food and water blockade in retaliation to the rocket attacks launched by Hamas militants on Israeli towns last October 7. The Israeli government warned Palestinians in Gaza to leave the city as it will conduct a massive ground offensive.
“We are calling on our brother Arab nations to open their borders and attend to the needs of the fleeing Palestinian residents, provide them with food, water or medical needs,” Hussein said.
Speakers at the rally took turns calling for a halt to the Israeli military operations in Gaza, and urged the United States and the United Nations to stay neutral in the conflict.
Organizers estimated the crowd at the peace rally at 12,000.
Midpantao Midtimbang, a former member of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority, scored the United States for apparently taking side in favor of Israel.
“ As an icon of democracy as they claimed, the U.S must be neutral in dealing with all the problems,” he said during the rally.
“We are calling the superpowers from the UN and United States to act responsibly to the human catastrophe happening now. It is our spiritual responsibility as Muslims to include in our prayers the welfare of our Palestinian brothers and sister who are in great suffering now,” peace advocate Khairuddin Midtimbang said.
The peace rally ended with an Islamic prayer at past 6 p.m.
While the Philippines is a predominantly Catholic nation, it has a largely Muslim minority based mainly in the Bangsamoro region in the south who endured decades of armed conflict until a peace treaty was signed in 2014 with the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, after 17 years of negotiations. (Ferdinandh Cabrera / MindaNews)
