ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Scores of people packed into Allentown City Council's chambers Wednesday night as many called for city leaders to demand an immediate cease-fire in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Several people urged council members to ignore those calls and focus on Tuesday's long agenda and local issues.
“A city council should be focused on [the] shooting of four people in the city of Allentown yesterday. The city council should be focused on the items in this lengthy agenda,” resident Robert Wax said. “To the extent that people have foreign affairs issues, those foreign affairs issues should be taken up with our federal legislators.”
But more than a dozen people pushed for local action, arguing the war is a local issue because Allentown taxpayer dollars are helping to fund Israel's military operations.
Drew Swedberg, film manager for the Civic Theatre of Allentown, presented council with a letter signed by more than 100 Lehigh Valley artists.
“These funds should be used to care for constituents who struggle with basic needs such as affordable housing, food."Resident Drew Swedberg
The letter asks council to join “global calls for a cease-fire as well as local calls for this council to immediately put a cease-fire resolution on the agenda,” Swedberg said.
He said the Lehigh Valley’s three largest cities send more than $3.1 million each year in local tax money “to arm Israel,” with more than half of that coming from Allentown.
“These funds should be used to care for constituents who struggle with basic needs such as affordable housing, food,” Swedberg said. “It's fiscally irresponsible and immoral to fund the genocide and keep their constituents needs' unmet."
"This money should be utilized to support the health and safety of our entire local community, rather than the destruction of humanity," he said.
Swedberg called on mayors in Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton to “stand with their constituents and release public resolutions calling for a permanent cease-fire.”
“We cannot allow silence to manufacture our community's consent in this genocide,” he said.
Allentown City Council heard from about 20 people Wednesday night, with some supporters and opponents of a potential resolution describing atrocities and brutalities of the war in grim detail.
Council members took no action and made no mention Wednesday of plans to continue discussions about a resolution.
Council reached the items on its agenda more than 90 minutes after the start of its meeting, which lasted almost four hours.
Lehigh Valley considers cease-fire resolutions
Bethlehem City Council fielded similar calls Tuesday to push for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Members of that body bought more time for a broader discussion, but a majority said they wanted the chance to perfect a potential cease-fire resolution before sharing it with state and federal officials.
Allentown’s neighboring city is now soliciting feedback from residents on a potential resolution.
Lehigh University students rallied earlier Tuesday on the school's front lawn calling for divestment and other long-term changes in the university's relationships with Israel and organizations with ties to the country.
Some of the same people pushed Easton City Council last week to consider a cease-fire resolution.
Dozens of U.S. cities, including Chicago and Seattle, have passed resolutions calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.
The U.S. on Tuesday vetoed an immediate cease-fire resolution in front of the United Nations Security Council.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, according to the Associated Press, while almost 2 million have been displaced in the past five months, Reuters reports.
The conflict was sparked Oct. 7 when Hamas militants killed about 1,200 Israeli people and took about 250 hostages; the Israeli military said 236 soldiers have been killed since, the Associated Press reports.
