Several hundred protesters gathered and marched on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus on Sunday in support of Palestine.
The rally began at 3 p.m. in front of the South Building. A large crowd of students, faculty, community members and entire families with small children filled Polk Place, the main square on campus.
The speakers led the crowd in songs, prayers and many different chants, including “Free, Free Palestine,” “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free,” “Gaza, You Are Not Alone,” and “Globalize the Intifada.”
Rally organizers also repeated chants of “BDS now,” referring to the international movement to boycott, expropriate and sanction Israel. They called on the UNC to “disclose” and “divest” any investments in the Jewish state.
UNC students began setting up tents on campus Friday, creating a “Gaza solidarity camp” similar to others set up at universities across the country.
Camp organizers agreed with UNC officials Friday afternoon to take down the poles of their tents, but left the flattened tents in the plaza, where they remained during Sunday’s rally.
Students at many colleges, including UNC Charlotte, are protesting the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that began on October 7, the Charlotte Observer previously reported. That’s when Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, launched a terrorist attack that killed more than 1,200 Israeli civilians and took 240 hostages.
Since then, Israel has dropped thousands of bombs in Gaza. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed since October.
During the rally, speakers criticized UNC and other universities for their response to the encampments, claiming that UNC officials stopped trash pickup and blocked access to restrooms and campus buildings over the weekend.
Students from other Triangle universities, including NC State, also attended Sunday’s rally. On Instagram, the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at NC State said it was encouraging its members to come to the Triangle Region Camp at UNC.
“The entire UNC system has extremely insidious and deep-rooted investments in Zionist occupation, and we must address this school at a time, which is why we must stand united and strong in Chapel Hill,” the NC State SJP chapter said in a post before Sunday’s rally.