Students at West Virginia University’s Morgantown campus demonstrated in support of Palestine for the second time in as many weeks.
Amidst students in graduation regalia taking family photos, close to 100 protesters gathered in front of WVU’s Woodburn Hall Saturday evening.
Forecasted rain did not deter the crowd from marching through downtown Morgantown chanting.
Omar Sabbagh is the president-elect of the Muslim Student Association, which organized Saturday’s march.
“We’re here to support the Palestinians,” he said. “35,000 plus civilians have been killed. That is a lowball estimate because people are under the rubble. People are injured in critical conditions and we’re here against that genocide. Israel is indiscriminately bombing, killing civilians in Gaza. We want them to stop not tomorrow, but right now.”
South Africa accused Israel of committing a genocide in the United Nation’s International Court of Justice, claims which are currently being adjudicated.
The group published an open letter to university administration Friday asking them to take action against anti-Arab harassment on campus, as well as disclosure and divestment of any investments involving the Israeli government or Israeli companies, amongst other demands.
“We also want to send a message to our to our elected representatives, that we will not stay silent, that we are against this genocide, and they need as our elected officials to do what we demand because we’re the ones that elect them.”
In their letter to the university, students give administrators until May 16, this coming Thursday to respond.
WVU student Olivia Dowler also helped organize the event the day before her graduation.
“I am ethnically, culturally Jewish,” she said. “And since the beginning of this, it has definitely been horrifying to see people saying it’s, like, in our name, almost, like on behalf of Jewish people when it’s really not. Like we faced the Holocaust. And they said, ‘Never again.’ And that means never again, for anybody.”
Dowler said she will continue to support student actions even after she leaves campus, and hoped the demonstration helps keep attention on the violence in Gaza and Rafa.
“I hope it spreads a lot of awareness to everybody around because you can turn away on social media, you can turn off the news, but you can’t really turn off this whole big group of people in front of you,” she said.
The protest also drew community members such as Maria Kahn, who came to the protest with her three-month-old son.
“I think about the mothers in Palestine every day, the parents every day, and the children every day, and what they go through, and it’s just unfathomable to me,” she said. “Every time I think about it, I almost break down. I just, it’s very hard to deal with. So I mean, anything we can do to help them.”
Kahn said she wants her child to know his parents were passionate for the causes they support.
“I just feel it’s really like, civic duty for me,” she said. “There’s a lot of stuff going on in the world and the average person doesn’t think that they have any power whatsoever to change it. But I’m trying to do wherever I can and that’s what everyone else is doing over here.”
Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting