1 YEAR LATER: West Michigan communities coping with war in Gaza

Oct. 7 is a day that will go down in history for both Palestinians and Israelis, but for all the wrong reasons.

Now one year later, countless innocent lives have been taken due to the ongoing war in Gaza that has history going past last year's attack, and the emotions of it all are higher than ever.

The Oct. 7 attacks on Israel sparked an already tumultuous area, but the damages being done to many innocent Palestinians will change the landscape forever.

"We’ve seen children eviscerated," said Emerson Wolf, chair of Palestine Solidarity Grand Rapids (PSGR). "We've seen people carrying their family members in bags, because all they could find were small body parts. These are things that we should never have to see, let alone experience.”

And those emotions go for Israeli supporters as well, with more than 1,200 Israeli citizens losing their lives since last year’s attack.

“So what I try to do at every service is to do a moment," said Javier Cattapan, a rabbi at Temple Emanuel. "We ask for the release of the hostages and a moment where we are asked for peace in the region because of the loss of lives on both sides."

Fewer than 100 hostages are still not home, and the Jewish community in Grand Rapids is praying for change.

“As a religious person, I'm not a political commentator or someone who knows much about military strategy," Rabbi Cattapan said. "So we want to keep focused on the release of the hostages and praying for peace."

On the Palestinian side, the effects have continued over the course of this year as images and numbers continue to add up.

"There are 40,000 people dead; that's a number from November of last year," Wolf said. "There's been 12 months of aggression since that number came out. We use that number because that's the number that was produced by the Gaza Health Authority before it was destroyed.”

All this buildup has led protesting across the country, and here at home.

But the protests are no longer for ceasefires but for the end of funding from the United States.

The site of Monday's protest location was in front of Woodward, a manufacturing company, which PSGR claims has built products used in the war.

"We want to stop the genocide on the Palestinian people," said Macy Gross, a protest attendee. "We need to stop sending our tax money towards wars that aren't even benefiting us."

The United States has provided $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel since Oct. 7, with no real end in sight.

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