Lukas Soloman (SFS ’26) and other members of Georgetown Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) spent hours writing the names of the Palestinian children and babies—starting with those under two-years-old—killed by Israel.
The 1,400 names they wrote represent a fraction of the children Israel has killed through airstrikes, intentional starvation, and snipers that have targeted civilians.
“This is a form of collective grief processing. It is a very intentional act, an act of remembrance, an act affirming that the names of these children who Israel has killed are—they’re not just numbers,” Soloman, who is co-president of SJP, said to the Voice. “They’re human beings, with names, with futures.”
Some of the children killed were infants—so young that they still had yet to be named.
“On the list, some of the newborns are just listed as ‘the son of’ or ‘the daughter of’ because they were killed right after their birth that they hadn’t even had a name recorded on the legal registry yet,” Soloman said.
Photo by Sabrina Shaffer
On Oct. 8 and 9, SJP and the Georgetown Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) held vigils in remembrance of the Palestinians Israel has killed since Oct. 7, 2023.
At the student-led vigil on Oct. 9, attended by over 50 people, Selina Al-Shihabi (SFS ’26), who is Palestinian, spoke through tears about the immense challenges of being so far from her family in Gaza.
“Sometimes it’s really hard to wake up, and sometimes it’s hard to go to school every day and do your assignments, and do your homework, and sometimes I wake up and really miss my family in Gaza,” Al-Shihabi said. “But I remember that it’s important to stay strong and that we have come so far this year.”
Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking another 250 people hostage in Gaza. Since then, the Israeli government has invaded and bombarded Gaza, killing over 42,000 people, displacing nearly the entire population, and destroying 60% of the buildings in Gaza.
This most recent escalation is part of a conflict over land that has been ongoing since the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, which displaced at least 700,000 Palestinians from their homes. After Hamas’s 2007 military takeover of Gaza, Israel blockaded Gaza, limiting access to water, food, education, and medical care and effectively isolating the strip from the rest of the world.
Since the start of the bombardment, Israeli officials have explicitly stated they intend to deny the people of Gaza access to basic needs. In March 2024, Francesca Albanese, a United Nations Special Rapporteur and Affiliate Scholar at Georgetown, reported that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza.
In response to the devastation that the Israeli attacks have caused in Gaza, FSJP’s vigil offered space for both advocacy and a quiet moment for attendees to mourn together. The Oct. 8 vigil, which about 40 people attended, echoed past FSJP gatherings—mourning the lives killed by Israel and the destruction of cultural and educational institutions in Gaza and the West Bank.
Faculty, staff, and students dressed in black stood in a line of solidarity that stretched across Red Square.
Photo by Paige Benish
Students and community members stopped in somber silence as attendees held signs displaying statistics and quotes, saying that Israel has committed “genocide,” “homicide,” “ecocide,” and “scholasticide” in Palestinian territories.
Norman Francis Jr. (CAS ’20), Senior Admissions Officer, participated in the FSJP vigil to express his frustration with the continued violence. He said that with Georgetown’s Jesuit values, particularly people for others, the Georgetown community has a collective duty to stand with Palestinians and other oppressed peoples in their struggles for liberation and justice.
“I’m here to highlight the fact that all these universities have been destroyed, the fact that ambulances and hospitals have been bombed,” Francis Jr. said as he held a sign quoting UN experts, about the allegation that Israel’s campaign is committing scholasticide in Gaza and the West Bank.
Lois Wessel, an associate professor in the School of Nursing and the School of Medicine, held a sign about the 885 healthcare workers killed in Gaza and the West Bank since September 2024.
“It’s a really good position to be in as an academic and to use our academic freedom to put together the pieces of what we all teach here at Georgetown, which is that human life is valuable and that we care about each and every human being,” Wessel said.
Wessel, as a Jewish woman whose mother survived the Holocaust, expressed frustration for the ongoing conflict and urged Georgetown, with its Jesuit heritage, to lead universities in divesting or advocating sanctions, as it did with reparations for those enslaved by the Jesuits.
Professor John Esposito, Founding Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, said he grieved for the ongoing destruction there caused by American-made Israeli bombs.
“What we have is a level of destruction which has to stop,” Esposito said.
Students expressed a similar sense of pain and anger at the SJP vigil on Wednesday. They held up a banner with the names of the children Israel had killed and offered personal testimonies. They also read poems from Palestinian writers, expressing grief, outrage, and resilience in the face of death and destruction.
Photo by Sabrina Shaffer
“Our surgeons in Gaza refuse to leave hospitals, even as they get besieged, they will not abandon their patients, even if it means martyrdom,” Rahma Abdallah (SOH ’27) said during the vigil’s opening remarks. “Our people continue practicing their faith, forming makeshift mosques and churches amid the rubble. Our people dig one another out of the rubble amid airstrikes.”
Soloman read the poem “If I Must Die” by Refaat Alareer, a writer and professor from Gaza who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his home in December 2023.
“Dr. Refaat taught us that we are not here to be in solidarity with Palestinian corpses, nor Palestinian victimhood, nor Palestinian passivity, but with Palestinian life, with Palestinian resilience, with Palestinian resistance,” Soloman said in a speech after the reading.
Dr. Refaat’s words reflect SJP and FSJP’s mission on campus to support Palestinian life and liberation. Both groups demand that Georgetown divest their $40.5 million investments from Alphabet and Amazon. Those companies entered into a $1.2 billion contract with Israel called Project Nimbus to develop cloud computing and AI facial detection technology which human rights groups like Amnesty International claim the Israeli government uses to surveil Palestinians.
“So when we stand here at a university, that one year into escalated genocide that has shaken this world to its core, at a university that has refused to divest its holdings in corporations complicit in the slaughter of our people, despite all of this, it is our job to continue the struggle,” Soloman said.
Attendees later walked in a silent procession to stand in front of Healy Hall. Organizers invited individuals to read poems and written testimonies of Palestinians, whose personal stories of violence, uncertainty, and resilience were of central focus, while candlelight illuminated crying faces.
“I’m living here in Gaza City, we have been experiencing some terrifying moments, who knows if we are going to live the next moment or not. We are praying every second to be alive, this is not a new thing for us,” read one of the testimonies from a 22-year-old architecture student at the University of Gaza.
As students navigate their ongoing grief, Miriam Siegel (CAS ’27), an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace, told the Voice about the importance of the vigil for creating a place for students to be in solidarity with one another.
“It’s so important to have a space to grieve, to feel our emotions, to be in rage together. After a year of genocide, there are so many emotions going around,” Siegel said. “It’s completely rational to be in rage right now, it’s completely rational to be angry at the way that we have been made complicit in this genocide as tuition-paying students.”
Editor’s Note: Lukas Soloman once served as an editor for the Voice.
