Around 30 people stood in the center of Acacia Park to hold a vigil on Tuesday for the Israeli hostages abducted two years ago.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, designated by the United States government as a foreign terrorist organization, initiated coordinated surprise attacks on civilian residential communities, at social events such as a concert, and on Israeli military bases in southern Israel that border the Gaza Strip.

Some 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, including 46 Americans, were killed in the assaults, according to the U.S. government. Of the 251 people abducted, Israel believes there are 48 remaining, with 20 still alive.

Chaim Goldman, a Messianic Jew, introduced numerous speakers at the vigil, which included pastors and elected representatives — many of whom held small Israeli flags while speaking.

Goldman was born in Philadelphia and is a dual citizen of Israel. He told The Gazette he almost died in a suicide bombing in 2002 in Israel.

“I understand this antisemitism, I understand this hatred, I understand this violence more than most,” Goldman said. “I want Americans to understand that, unfortunately, this is here now.”

Several speakers cited the recent murder of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk to reflect on the current state of political violence in America.

Goldman hypothesized that the smaller crowd this year than last, which was around 70 people, might be because people are scared after Kirk’s murder.

U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank felt compelled to attend the vigil to show he stands with Israel after a terrorist attack, the same way it did for America after 9/11.

“It’s really important that we stand by them as a country and that we work hard to remember so that this doesn’t happen again,” Crank told The Gazette. “We’ve got to get to the point where we don’t have a Sept. 11th or we don’t have an Oct. 7th in the future.”

Since the attack on Oct. 7, Israel has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians, according to a team of independent experts commissioned by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, which they say amounts to genocide, which Israel denies.

In November, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was issued an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and other war crimes.

The U.S. does not recognize a Palestinian state, but more than 150 countries do, and Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom did so in late September.

Neither Goldman nor Crank believes actions by Israel constitute war crimes.

“There’s no moral equivalency to cowards who parachuted into Israel and started killing women and children to Israeli soldiers who were going in and trying to defend the state of Israel,” Crank said.

Goldman told the crowd before introducing the first speaker that Israel and America do not want the war “but, unfortunately, in a war people die.”