Washington, DC As scores of Georgetown University students arrived at a protest at the nearby George Washington University (GW) campus in the center of the US capital city, chants of “free Palestine” were cut off by applause and ululations.
In the midst of the conflict in Gaza, educators, activists, and students from all across the Washington, DC, region came together on Thursday to support the Palestinian people and call for a stop to what they see as their universities’ collaboration with Israel’s violations of human rights.
Joining the nationwide pro-Palestinian protests happening in college campuses around the nation, GW students had established a protest camp on campus.
According to Anna Wessels, a Georgetown student, “we’re here to show support for the students at GW and to raise the demands of all the students in DC, which are to cut ties with Israeli universities because of their complicity in the Israeli genocide in Palestine, and to divest from companies that are involved in weapons manufacturing and Israeli apartheid.”
Blocks from the White House and the Department of State, the GW encampment brought the nationwide college demonstrations to the campus.
Our reporter was informed on Thursday by a number of students and organizers that their attention remained fixed on Gaza and Palestine, where the Israeli force has killed over 34,000 Palestinians and mass graves are still being found.
Mimi Ziad, a Palestinian Youth Movement organizer, stated, “This entire encampment was made with every single messaging to be around the genocide in Gaza and to revolve around centering all of the demands on Gaza.”
Wessels emphasized the importance of the demonstrations occurring at the US federal government’s headquarters.
