Hatem Abudayyeh, national chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network and a spokesman for the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine, said elected officials’ condemnations of Palestinians were “not acceptable. The reason for this escalation is decades of Israeli crimes--decades of home demolitions, of stealing of land, of killing of Palestinian people in their home and in the streets.” He said that about 2,000 people rallied outside the Israeli consulate in Chicago this weekend and that many Palestinians in Chicago have relatives in Israel. “And so there is a lot of fear. And then of course also to just mourn the loss.” He said that “while the Palestinian-Israeli situation is complex, there is no complexity to what happened this weekend. Terrorist actors committed the most heinous atrocities on innocent civilians Israel has ever seen.”

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Persons: Hatem Abudayyeh, Lonnie Nasatir, “, ”, Israel Organizations: U.S . Palestinian Community Network, Chicago Coalition for Justice, Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Locations: U.S, Palestine, Chicago, Israel, Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, Glencoe, America, Palestinian