REVOLT FOR RAFAH:
Join Palestinian students, supported by the wider community at Columbia, at a the new Gaza Solidarity Encampment. We are outraged by Columbia’s complicity in the killing of our people in Gaza, and most recently the massacre in Rafah. We are equally outraged by Columbia’s use of brute force and their capitulation to the Billionaire’s lobby, instead of to the “safety of the students”. We will resist, until Columbia divests.
The action will coincide with Columbia’s Alumni Reunion. We want to make it clear to Columbia Alumni to cease donating to Columbia until they meet our demands.
This will be an action of community building and political education. Programming will include teach-ins, film screenings, art builds, open mics and talks with Palestinians in Gaza and Palestine. Food and cold refreshments will be available.
Until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea.
Reposted from Columbia Encampment on Telegram
Article from the Columbia Spectator (student newspaper):
Pro-Palestinian protesters repitch encampment on South Lawn during annual alumni reunion
Friday’s encampment comes over a month after protesters first occupied the east side of South Lawn on April 17.
The Morningside Heights campus remains open only to Columbia ID holders.
Roughly two dozen pro-Palestinian protesters occupied the west side of South Lawn at 7 p.m. on Friday during Columbia’s annual alumni reunion, demanding that the University divest from companies with ties to Israel and provide full financial transparency of its direct and indirect investments.
The protesters laid down tarps, pitched around 10 tents, and displayed banners reading “While You’re Earning Rafah’s Burning,” “We’re back bitches,” and “@alumni No Donations ‘til Divestment.” In an Instagram post, the Columbia chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine identified the protesters as “an autonomous group of Palestinian students” supported by Columbia University Apartheid Divest.
Several Public Safety officers entered South Lawn and began removing tents at around 7:55 p.m as protesters chanted “Shame.” Protesters then sat inside the tents to prevent officers from taking them, and officers attempted to rip tents from protesters’ hands. An organizer left the lawn with the officers. Five tents remained on the lawn after officers left.
Friday’s encampment comes over a month after protesters first occupied the east side of South Lawn on April 17, sparking worldwide protests on University campuses. The New York Police Department swept the encampment on April 18 at the authorization of University President Minouche Shafik, arresting 108. Protesters quickly moved to the west side, where they remained for almost two weeks.
Pro-Palestinian protesters occupied Hamilton Hall on April 30, the day after Shafik announced that Columbia will not divest from Israel and that talks between the administration and student negotiators had ended. Twenty-one hours later, Shafik authorized the NYPD to sweep Hamilton and the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” arresting 109.
Maryam Alwan, GS ’25, a protester at the new encampment, said she was “surprised” that Public Safety officers began removing tents without warning the protesters on the lawns.
“I think if the University hasn’t already realized that their show of force doesn’t deter us, then they have learned nothing from the movement in the first place. So long as the genocide and the occupation of Palestine continues, we will be fighting for divestment, especially seeing the invasion of Rafah and the headless child and the burning bodies,” Alwan said. “I think we all feel sick to our stomach and even though there’s way less of us who are still on campus, we still want to do whatever we can to fight back.”
On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike killed as many as 45 people after igniting a fire in a camp where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, according to the Associated Press. Israel’s invasion of Rafah has made it “nearly impossible” for humanitarian aid to be distributed to Palestinians, the Associated Press reported.
Alwan said she hopes this encampment pushes University administrators to return to the negotiating table with protesters. Negotiations between members of the administration and student protesters ended on April 29 after protesters rejected the University’s offers, which included developing an “expedited timeline” for review of divestment proposals and a process for students to access a list of Columbia’s direct divestment holdings.
At around 8:15 p.m., protesters barricaded the large white tent in the center of the lawn with wooden tables, reinforcing them with chairs.
“We are aware of the encampment erected this evening and are monitoring the situation. We remain committed to hosting a successful weekend for our alumni,” a University spokesperson wrote in a statement to Spectator.
The Morningside campus remains open only to Columbia ID holders. Students at affiliated institutions, including Barnard College and Teachers College, remain unable to access campus.
When protesters first erected tents, several Public Safety officers stood around the perimeter of the lawn but did not directly intervene. One officer passed by the lawn around five minutes after protesters entered, saying “You gotta leave.”
Following Public Safety’s removal of about five tents from South Lawn, students gathered for a Shabbat dinner, singing in Hebrew and serving homemade challah bread and food from Holy Cow.
As they ate, demonstrators played music from speakers, including Macklemore’s “Hind’s Hall.” The artist released the song in support of Palestinians and the pro-Palestinian movement in May, titling it after the name Columbia protesters gave Hamilton when they occupied the building in honor of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian child killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest called on alumni to withhold their donations and for students to mobilize in an Instagram post.
At around 7:40 p.m., protesters began chanting “Free, free Palestine” and “We want justice you say how, divestment right now” before an organizer laid out the Friday encampment’s demands.
“Columbia University thinks that just because it’s the summer, they don’t have as many classes, they don’t have as many students, … that we’re tired, that we’re scared, that we’re not going to be on their campus because they have a few ID checks. They’re wrong,” the organizer said. “As long as the genocide rages on in Gaza, students at Columbia University will be present. They will be agitating at this University, learning together, educating, agitating, and organizing at Columbia.”
Roughly a dozen pro-Palestinian protesters stood outside the 116th Street and Broadway gates at around 10 p.m. chanting “Columbia your hands are red, over 40,000 dead.”
Protesters gathered for a nightly assembly soon afterward, where a speaker noted that a central goal for the encampment is to ask alumni to withhold donations. The speaker also restated the encampment’s central demands for the University: full divestment from Israel, full financial transparency, and amnesty for all disciplined student protesters.
The speaker said that the Friday encampment was a “Palestinian-led event” in response to the images and news coming from Rafah. They spoke about their reaction to a widely-circulated image of a Palestinian father holding his beheaded child.
“I’ve never felt like I wanted to rip out my skin more,” they said.
The speaker also invited protesters to reflect on the earlier Public Safety intervention. Protesters discussed what to do if Public Safety officers returned to the encampment and agreed to stay. Another speaker advised each participant to consider how much risk they are willing to take and said that individuals should feel free to leave the encampment.
As of 1:28 a.m. on Saturday, protesters remained on the lawn. Protesters will hold a press conference at 2 p.m. on Saturday as part of the day’s scheduled programming.