Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside Kogan Plaza and across campus Tuesday night to mourn Palestinians killed by the Israeli military since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and to renew calls for the University to divest from weapons manufacturers and companies linked to Israel.
Around 100 students gathered on H Street outside of Kogan Plaza at around 7 p.m. for a protest organized by Students for Justice in Palestine, before marching to University Yard and the Office of the Board of Trustees, where student representatives from pro-Palestinian groups at GW and across the DMV led chants and delivered speeches. Marking the two-year anniversary of the war in Gaza, students renewed their demands for GW to divest from companies tied to the war in Gaza and mourned the Palestinians who have been killed by Israel since the war began.
In response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel — where Hamas killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages — Israel launched a military offensive in Gaza. Over 67,000 Palestinians have died and 169,600 have been injured by Irsaeli forces since the start of the war, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health.
President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that Israel and Hamas had partially agreed to terms laid out in his peace plan for the war in Gaza, which included the release of all remaining hostages, Palestinian prisoners and an end to fighting. Trump said Thursday he expects Hamas to release the hostages by Monday or Tuesday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said they believe 20 of the 48 hostages still in Gaza are alive.
This would be the first ceasefire in the conflict since one brokered by former President Joe Biden in January, which fell apart two months later after talks between Israel and Hamas to extend the ceasefire did not begin.
The protest marked SJP’s first campus demonstration since the group disaffiliated from the University in August following a yearlong suspension of the organization in April for hosting events without adviser approval and a separate two-year status revocation officials issued over the summer for the group’s petition calling on officials to fire economics professor Joseph Pelzman.
The group mostly avoided entering Kogan and other private University property because they had disaffiliated from GW, according to a media representative for the protesters who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation from the University.
The media representative said SJP organized the protest to show University officials, including the Board of Trustees, that students want GW to divest from companies tied to weapon sales to Israel, especially as more international officials say Israel is committing a genocide. In September, a United Nations commission of inquiry said Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza.
SJP and other pro-Palestinian student organizations have been demanding that the University divest from weapons manufacturers and companies tied to Israel since the war broke out in 2023.
“This being the two year anniversary of the start of the genocide, it makes it an incredibly important day for students and organizations to show up and remind these institutions that we are present, that we are here and that our resistance is not going to peter out or end, that they are not going to exhaust us,” the media representative said.
SJP’s “Gaza our compass” event began Tuesday just after 7 p.m., initially with roughly 60 students chanting “Free, free Palestine” and “From the belly to the beast, hands off the Middle East.” MPD cruisers blocked off the entire 2100 block of H Street from traffic with the group of protesters standing on the crosswalk in between Kogan and District House.
Around the same time, attendees from the nearby GW for Israel Oct. 7 vigil in the G Street Park — which had just concluded — and other students in the area stopped to watch the demonstration.
A group of nearly 25 student counterprotesters stood on the crosswalk outside of District House, with some holding up the Israeli flag and heckling the pro-Palestinian protesters.
Twenty minutes after the protest started, a student from the Muslim Students Association led a group of around 20 students in the Salat Al Ghaib prayer, a funerary prayer performed when a large group of Muslim people die at once.
After the prayer, a small number of GWPD officers lined the entrance to Kogan under the Trustee’s Gate, while a wall of MPD and GWPD officers positioned themselves between the crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israel counterprotesters on H Street.
A few minutes later, at least four MPD officers on bikes arrived to reinforce the line of GWPD officers blocking the Trustees’ Gate. One protester, who had been photographing the demonstration from behind the police line at the gate in Kogan Plaza, attempted to rejoin the crowd. As they passed through the line, a GWPD officer pushed the protester into the crowd, prompting a brief shoving match between protesters and officers. After both sides stopped shoving at each other, the police line pushed forward, moving the crowd onto H Street and the group then began to march towards U-Yard.
Once at U-Yard, the site of the April 2024 pro-Palestinian encampment, students continued chanting, “We will free Palestine within our lifetimes.” Sometime after the protest began, officials closed the gates to U-Yard, which remained closed for the duration of the protest.
A line of at least 10 MPD officers on bikes, along with a handful of GWPD officers, stood outside of the center entrance to U-Yard on H Street. A smaller number of counterprotesters followed the crowd to U-Yard, some of whom continued to hold up Israeli flags or heckle the group of protesters, standing outside of the School of Media and Public Affairs building.
Outside of U-Yard, speakers took turns reciting Palestinian poetry and reading out a list of some of the Gazans who have been killed since the onset of the war. A representative of the DMV SJP Coalition, a group of the SJP chapters at universities in the DMV area, who did not identify themselves to the crowd, said university officials across the nation have been targeting students who speak up for Palestine, including degree revocations.
“They’re the ones who take our tuition and directly fund the war crimes committed by the Zionist entity,” the representative said.
The crowd began singing a Palestinian folk song before marching once again, up 19th Street towards Pennsylvania Ave and along I Street past Western Market to the Office of the Board of Trustees on 21st Street.
At the Board of Trustees office, students chanted, “Board of Trustees, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” GW officials, including Assistant Vice Provost and Deputy Dean of Students Rachael Stark and Brandon Burton, a program associate of engagement from the Office of Military and Veteran Services, were observing the protest outside of the office wearing a badge that read “Designated Official.”
Associate Vice President of Campus Safety Katie McDonald was present throughout the duration of the protest.
Just before 8:30 p.m., a few minutes after arriving at the Board of Trustees office, a member from GW’s SJP chapter, who did not identify themselves to the crowd, reiterated SJP’s demand for the University to divest from companies tied to the war in Gaza.
The SJP member said the group has tried to bring their demands to University officials in the past, but have been met with “dismissal, repression and violence” each time they attempt to do so.
“It has been made explicitly clear that GW administration refuses to divest from them,” the SJP member said.
The member said the pro-Palestinian movement will continue to fight for the end of the war in Gaza and divestment from companies tied to the conflict, even if it is a slow process. They said the recent arms embargoes on Israel from countries like Spain and Italy show that international opinion on the war and Israel is beginning to shift.
“If we want material action, if we want to end the genocide, break the siege and see Gaza as well as all of Palestine free from occupation, we need more happening, not less,” the SJP member said.
At about 8:50 p.m., following one final round of chanting “Free, free Palestine,” the protest concluded, just under two hours after it started.
Gianna Jakubowski, Jenna Lee and Tyler Iglesias contributed reporting.
