By Jorge Casuso

May 10, 2024 -- A Santa Monica bike shop that has been displaying an Israeli flag in its window was vandalized with a "free Palestine" tag this week, according to a report on Fox 11.

The graffiti was scrawled in red on the window in front of the flag at Sundays Cycles, 2411 Main Street, said owner Elon Rubin.

Rubin has displayed the flag since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas killed some 1,200 people during an attack on Israel October 7, Rubin said.

"My message to the person who did this, we have you on film and your face is covered," Rubin told Fox 11 Los Angeles.

"If you’d like to talk and actually have a conversation, come by the shop," he said. "I’m not hard to find, I’m here pretty much every day of the week."

Rubin, who vowed not to remove the flag, believes the vandalism is a hate crime and has filed a report with the Santa Monica Police Department.

"We can agree to disagree about the conflict going on right now," he said. "But Israelis and Jews are not going around vandalizing businesses."

"They show up with masks, we show up with our flags."

Israel retaliated by waging an all out war against Hamas in Gaza, where the terrorist group is entrenched among civilians in schools and hospitals and in a vast network of tunnels.

The war -- which has resulted in some 35,000 reported deaths -- has sparked protests on college campuses across the U.S. where students and pro-Palestinian activists have set up camps and disrupted classes.

On Tuesday, the City Council will take up a resolution "supporting the resumption of a negotiated bilateral ceasefire in Gaza and reiterating the City’s condemnation of all antisemitism, anti-Arab racism, Islamophobia, and all forms of hate and incitement to violence."

The resolution by Councilmembers Jesse Zwick, Caroline Torosis and Gleam Davis calls for "the end of Hamas’s rule in Gaza, due process for all prisoners, and the immediate release of the remaining 132 Israeli hostages taken by Hamas."