A memorial to the Israeli hostages on the Downtown Gainesville Square has been vandalized multiple times in the past week.
The memorial, which consists of several traffic cones with photos of hostages taken by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023, was created by local attorney Joseph Summer on his firm’s property on Bradford Street.
Speaking on WDUN’s "The Martha Zoller Show" Monday morning, Summer said the first major defacement of the memorial occurred sometime on the evening of Tuesday, May 14.
“Going into Wednesday morning, somebody threw what I think was some sort of marinara sauce or red substance on the Israeli flag, just the Israeli flag,” Summer recalled. “...So, I ordered a new flag, didn't think much more was [going to ] happen.”
However, Summer said after he returned to the firm Friday morning, he discovered the memorial had once again been vandalized with a substance made to look like fake blood over all the memorial’s photos, the Israeli flag, the American flag, and a sign marking the area as an “Israeli Solidarity Zone.” Additionally, Summer said the vandals had left an “Anti-Semetic piece of Propaganda” in the area of the memorial.
The final vandalization of the memorial occurred Saturday night, where Summer said the vandals spray painted messages such as “Free Gaza” and “Free Palestine” on the city sidewalk and left a second paper with the same “anti-semetic” message found on the property Friday night.
“I just feel like Jewish people around the world are under attack right now,” Summer told WDUN’s Martha Zoller. “We all need to stand up to this hate. I mean, what happened this weekend at the memorial is unacceptable. [It's] private property. I'm not saying anything Anti-Palestinian, I'm just simply highlighting the people that are there who were taken.”
The memorial has been up since January 2024. Summer shared he plans to keep the memorial up until further notice.
