Boston city council adopts Gaza cease-fire resolution

The Boston City Council on Wednesday overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling for an immediate and permanent cease-fire in Gaza.

"Our message is simple: All life is precious, and the time has come for us to stand up and call for an end to this senseless violence," Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson said before the vote.

This was the council's third attempt to pass a resolution calling for an end to the Israel-Hamas war. The symbolic move calls for an "immediate and permanent cease-fire in Israel and Palestine, an end to the bombing of Gaza, the freeing of all hostages from Hamas and the freeing of all administrative detainees held by Israel."

Fernandes Anderson, who is the council’s first Muslim-American member and a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights, authored the resolution.

Councilors Ed Flynn and Erin Murphy were the only dissenting votes. "I still believe that the City Council is not the right body to address this," Flynn said. "We have critical issues facing the city, the budget, public safety challenges, getting our economy back on track, neighborhood services."

Flynn earlier this year took a five-day "fact-finding" trip to Israel with a delegation of American leaders. That trip cost $21,000, according to an ethics filing, and was sponsored by a nonprofit affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington, D.C.

Advocates in the chamber Wednesday broke out in applause after the 11-2 vote, stopping only after Council President Ruthzee Louijeune gaveled them down.

The vote comes amid anti-war protests at multiple Boston-area college campuses and others across the country. More than 200 protesters from Emerson College and Northeastern University were arrested in the past week and are still being arraigned. Protest encampments remain at MIT, Harvard University and Tufts University. At Tufts, the administration was set to restart negotiations Wednesday afternoon with students to remove their tents.

The Cambridge, Somerville, and Medford city councils also have passed cease-fire resolutions in the past year.

A copy of Boston's resolution will be shared with all members of Massachusetts' congressional delegation.