Somerville City Council has approved a resolution to study divesting city funds from companies that do business with Israel , officially taking action on a nonbinding ballot measure approved by voters on Nov. 4.

At the council’s meeting Tuesday, councilors voted 9-2 to approve the resolution, which instructs them to draft and pass an ordinance in the next year. While members of the public who attended the meeting spoke about the impacts of the war in Gaza, most city councilors said they were chiefly concerned with following the will of the voters, who voted 55% in favor of this month’s ballot question .

“This question received more votes than the vast majority of us,” Councilor Willie Burnley Jr., who filed the resolution, told his colleagues before the vote. “It is, in my view, base

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