'Houston to Gaza, globalize Intifada:' US Rally praises October 7 attacks

Activists praised the October 7 massacre and terrorists during a Friday Al-Quds Day rally in Houston, Texas, according to videos published by Syed Sarim.

“This annual event comes on the backdrop of the Al-Aqsa Flood from October 7, which effectively exposed the fallacy of the zionist security and intelligence,” one speaker said during the event, who explained how Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, Palestinians, and Houston were unified by resistance to Israel.

The speaker said that acts of violence like “Gazan children flying incendiary balloons” and Hamas’s October 7 had crafted a “new path for freedom,” and extolled Hezbollah in Lebanon for joining the war to displace “hundreds of thousands of illegal settlers” in the north of Israel and for the Houthi blockade of the Bab al-Mandab Strait. During marches, some protesters waved Yemeni flags.

Protesters were led in a chant calling out in reference to the Hamas operational name of the October 7 Massacre, Al-Aqsa Flood.

“Flood Al-aqsa, Flood Al-Aqsa, we are with the Intifada,” said the demonstrators. “On the streets we will flood, honoring the martyrs’ blood.”

Activists spoke at the event with a banner of Jerusalem that proclaimed that “The flood of the free will liberate Al Quds [Jerusalem].” As seen in photographs uploaded to Instagram on Sunday by Palestinian Youth Movement Houston and Party for Socialism and Liberation Houston, many activists wore t-shirts emblazoned with the phrase “flood of the free.” The shirt included the red triangles used in Hamas propaganda to denote a target.

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A woman in a red hijab in Sarim’s videos called to “Drown all the oppressors in the flood of the free,” and decried American leaders for supporting the so-called genocide by the “Illegal zionist entity.”

Making references to terrorists during the event

Speakers made reference to several terrorists during the event. A woman in a black hijab and checkered keffiyeh referenced Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and glorified martyrdom and jihad.

“This past Friday, on the 19th of Ramadan, Sayyid Hassan [Nasrallah] called into light the significance of the words of Imam Ali on the eve of his martyrdom,” said the woman. “He said this so we may recognize that martyrdom is good, martyrdom is a goal. But does this mean that we don’t cry for the ones who are martyred? Of course we cry. But despite the overarching grief, we are proud of our martyrs. So what is martyrdom? Martyrdom is Jihad. And what is Jihad?”

The activist explained that “Jihad is to rise against those who act against Allah,” be it in art, poetry, social media or protest.

The activist also invoked Basel al-Araj, who was killed in 2017 in a gun battle with police when they sought to arrest him on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks. She said that Al-Araj continued to inspire others.

“Shahid Basel proves that to reach the lofty goal of martyrdom or even to wage jihad one must truly understand their position in the world, their stations and self-worth, as well as the weaknesses of their enemies,” said the activist. “Shahid Basel states that, yes, we are victims – we are victims, but there is a difference between one who instills the victim’s revenge against their oppressors and the one who wants to be a victim just to prove that they are not a threat.”

PYM Houston’s Mohammad Nabulsi, in a video posted on Instagram by Rise Against Oppression and Muslim Congress, made reference to the terrorist who inspired the Lion’s Den group after being killed in a battle with the IDF in 2022.

“Ibrahim Al-Nabulsi, the late martyr, his mother said that we do not bury our martyrs, we plant them in the earth so that they may be seeds that grow the fire which will redeem our people and bring us to liberation.”

Nabulsi mocked Israel for not yet being able to destroy Hamas and free the hostages, and praised the “resistance” for refusing ceasefire deals that didn’t contain a full IDF withdrawal from Gaza.

“The Palestinian people have shown us what it means to confront US empire and Israeli settler colonialism with your head held high,” said Nabulsi.

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On another Instagram video of Nabulsi later that night calling for the release of three protesters arrested by the Houston Police Department (HPD), PYM in the caption compared the detainees to Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist Walid Daqqah, who died from cancer. He called for protesting not just Israel, but also the HPD and other institutions, so as to change the system.

During the march, protests chanted that the HPD, Ku Klux Klan, and the IDF were all the same.

“From Houston to Gaza, globalize the Intifada,” sang protesters. “Intifada, Intifada, long live the intifada.”

Marchers also chanted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

A woman named Bayan, wearing a Palestinian flag as a cape, mentioned that the FBI had recently attempted to question her husband, and explained what the chant meant.

“When we’re saying from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, Palestine is not going to be free on its own... It’s going to take the resistance fighters struggling for their own liberation and then us over here using our word and our presence to demand that our government officials end the senseless killing over there.”

One man in a beige shirt said that the “cancerous tumor in that country known as Zionism... it will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed.”

The protest saw chants that expressed similar sentiments to destroy Israel, such as “Settlers, settlers go back home, Palestine is ours alone,” and “From the water to the water, Palestine is Arab.”

A member of Houston for Palestinian Liberation, identified in a Tuesday Instagram video as Nish, said that “You can have injustice and still have peace, so peace is not the answer, liberation is the answer. Peace is the colonizer’s word and liberation is ours.”