Northwestern University in Qatar students gathered in a show of solidarity with Palestine on Sunday, donning keffiyehs and displaying flags and placards bearing poignant statements and denouncing Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s shelling of Gaza in response to attacks by Hamas last week has claimed over 2,000 lives in Gaza and the West Bank. Nearly 7,700 are reported wounded by Israeli airstrikes.
Concurrently, Israel reported that at least 1,300 people lost their lives during rocket attacks and raids into Israeli territory by Hamas, with over 3,000 individuals sustaining injuries.
“This is a genocide and needs to be recognized as such,” said Tamim Younis, a journalism senior and president of Students for Justice in Palestine at NU-Q. He called for sanctions against the Israeli government for alleged war crimes. Younis’s family has a personal connection to the ongoing conflict, having been displaced from their native hometown of Safad in Palestine during the Nakba, the Arabic word meaning “catastrophe” that Palestinians use to reference their expulsion from Palestine in 1948. His colleagues have lost relatives to the violence in Gaza this week.
Following the World Health Organization condemning Israel’s orders for 1 million Gazans to evacuate the northern half of the Strip in advance of aerial bombing, students voiced their concerns over what the United Nations warns is a humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza. They also appealed for support for the beleaguered healthcare system in Gaza.
“Gaza is an open-air prison,” said Habiba Thelab, an Egyptian first-year student who participated in the solidarity event. “Now, they’ve cut off water and electricity altogether,” she added.
The solidarity gathering at NU-Q also sought to question the portrayal of Palestinians in the mainstream media. Younis emphasized the importance of avoiding dehumanizing narratives, particularly mentioning that Israel’s actions have been a significant factor in the region’s turmoil for decades. “Insinuating our side is barbaric when the Israeli regime has been doing this for decades is dehumanizing,” Younis said.
Members of SJP at NU-Q also expressed disappointment with Northwestern University President Michael Schill’s statement issued on Friday, which ignored Palestinian deaths but referenced unconfirmed reports of acts such as beheadings of children by Hamas in a prior statement on Thursday. Schill initially expressed reluctance to comment on the war, citing its political nature and actions that are in misalignment with Northwestern’s core values.
“It is very embarrassing to propagate such misinformation given that NU’s leading school of journalism,” Thelab emphasized.
Thelab also expressed frustration at the ambiguity in the university’s stance amid the crisis and called for a clearer and more definitive statement. She added that while she has found solidarity and support at NU-Q, she couldn’t help but worry for student members of SJP on the NU Evanston campus, as targeted hate crimes against Palestinians are already on the rise in the U.S. In a troubling incident on Saturday, a 71-year-old man in Plainfield, Illinois, fatally stabbed a 6-year-old Palestinian boy and injured his mother. This horrific act was attributed to the ongoing violence between Hamas and Israel.
NU-Q Dean Marwan M. Kraidy issued a statement on Thursday acknowledging that many in the community have experienced “pain, anger, fear, sadness, and anxiety about what is unfolding in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” adding that “I am myself heartbroken by the violence and loss of life.” Kraidy also referred to counseling services available to students, faculty, and staff.
However, attendees at the solidarity event expressed the need for a more unequivocal stance from the dean, calling for a condemnation of statements from the main campus that they say perpetuate misinformation.
“How can you recognize the Israeli state when the majority of death is happening [to] Palestinian children?” asked Abdullah Sarhan, a Palestinian communication junior. He also emphasized the need for NU-Q to address the misinformation issue.
SJP at NU-Q said it intends to continue the solidarity event for the rest of the week to counter misinformation and raise awareness about the war between Israel and Hamas. “This is an opportunity for everyone, including Jews, Muslims, and Christians, to stand up against apartheid,” Younis added.
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Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story stated, “Israel reported that at least 1,300 people lost their lives during rocket attacks into Israeli territory by Hamas.” This has since been corrected to highlight that the count included casualties from both rocket attacks and the raid Hamas conducted on Oct. 7.