Around 50 students and faculty members gathered to speak, share stories, and honor the lives that have been lost in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a vigil hosted by Georgetown Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on the evening of Oct. 7 in Red Square.
The vigil comes three years after Hamas first attacked southern Israel, killing almost 1,200 people and taking around 240 hostages.
“It was the day the world we knew shifted beneath us. Before it, Palestine was being treated as a closed chapter, something the world could ignore,” Noor Zaareir (CAS ’29), a speaker from SJP, said. “Leaders were busy redrawing the region as if our people were not a part of it. After that day, all of it came apart.”
Over the last three years, Israel’s retaliation has resulted in the deaths of almost 74,000 Palestinians, over a third of whom are children.
Students wore keffiyehs, a patterned cloth used commonly to express solidarity with Palestinians, and adorned the red square tree with a Palestinian flag, marking the vigil as an expression of community solidarity and an occasion to reflect on events of the last three years.
The vigil occurred on Day 2 of SJP’s “Week of Rage,” a week of events related to advocacy and education regarding Palestine spanning from Oct. 5 to Oct. 10 and culminating in a March for Palestine at the Capitol on Saturday. The vigil included speakers from SJP, the Anti-Zionist Jewish Student Front, the GU Arab Society, and the Young Democratic Socialistists of America.
Jackson Schnabel (SFS ’27), a member of SJP, shared that the the use of statistics during memorials can sometimes flatten the lives that have been lost during the genocide.
“Every martyr is their own universe, filled with memories, filled with their experiences, their joy, their love, their anger, their sadness, and it’s all destroyed by the occupation forces,” he said, referring to Palestinians who have been killed as martyrs, symbolizing their death playing a role in fighting Zionism, as per the Palestine Diaspora Movement.
The vigil also included personal remarks from students with family in Palestine, a prayer from the Muslim Students Association, and calls to memorialize Palestinian deaths.
Professor Fida Adely, a member of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, paid homage to Yasmin Al-Bobo, a professor at Palestine University who was killed in an Israeli airstrike this past Sunday.
“‘She was a devoted educator, a mentor, a scholar who poured her heart into shaping the minds of the next generation. Behind every number lies a name, a life, and a legacy that will never be erased,’” Adely read from an online post.
Other speakers drew attention to Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl who was trapped in a car with the dead bodies of her six relatives for hours. Rajab was found dead twelve days later by paramedics, though the Israeli military only admitted to firing on the car Rajab was trapped in two years after her death.
“She was six. She should have been losing her first tooth and complaining about homework,” Zaareir said.
Zaareir went on to share two more stories of children who had been killed, sharing the acronym used by doctors in Gaza, WCNSF, which means wounded child, no surviving family.
“We know their names because someone was there to tell their stories,” Zaareir said. “Think about how many children never got that, how many were hurt and never heard from at all.”
Sienna Lipton (CAS ’27) spoke as a representative from the Anti-Zionist Jewish Student Front. Lipton shared how Judaism has guided her to advocate for the liberation of the Palestinian people through the Hebrew word Teshuva, meaning “to return to oneself and to God.”
“I understand now that it [Teshuvah] must center [on] facing the historical and ongoing crimes and injustices against the Palestinian people,” Lipton said. “True teshuva among the Jewish community translates to advocating for the Palestinian right to return, opposing occupation, and seeking systemic reparations for the atrocities being committed in the Jewish names. We must be steadfast in our opposition to the Zionist regime.”
Over the weekend, prior to the vigil, SJP had put up a map of Palestine in the Hilltop campus’ Red Square with the names of deceased Palestinian children. The poster was removed twice since being put up. It had been torn down on Monday night, and had been ripped in half on Wednesday after being put back up, according to SJP member Ian Crowley (CAS ’28). The organization does not know which group or students may have committed the act.
“[It’s] not only a violation of free speech, the principle that Red Square is supposedly supposed to uphold, but [this act] also let us know that there are people who don’t recognize the humanity of the thousands of people who have been martyred in the genocide. ” Crowley said.
Schnabel closed the vigil with a moment of silence for the martyrs, thanking attendees and assuring that justice and liberation for the Palestinian people is “inevitable.”
“I just hope, as I close out, that everyone else here can feel as I do, at least lightened by the solidarity here on this campus with one another, then we remain in community with each other,” Schnabel said.
