The protesters take an extended moment of silence before marching around campus. (Jonathan Suni/Emerald)
A “rally for Rafah”, organized by the University of Oregon Students for Justice in Palestine, Grads for Palestine and the Springfield-Eugene Anti-Imperialist Coalition, took place outside of the Erb Memorial Union Amphitheater at 2 p.m. on Feb. 14.
Over the weekend, Israel launched an airstrike on Rafah, a Palestinian city in the southern Gaza strip.
“What is occurring in this very moment is what we must focus on. We must direct all of our attention to Rafah,” co-director of the UO SJP Salem Khoury said. “Israel has shown the world that they do not care.”
Salem Younes, a member of UO SJP, said that the organization will be increasing their measures, in response to the violence.
“Rafah is supposed to be a safe place,” Younes said. “They [Israel] have continuously been bombing it, but now there’s nowhere else to go, so this is one of the final stages of genocide and we need to really ramp things up now.”
Roughly 200 people were in attendance, holding signs saying “We will not be complicit in genocide” and “ You cannot liberate with violence. Free Palestine.” Protesters marched inside the EMU where two speakers encouraged members to fight back in honor of Palestine.
“We are here in the name of peace in the name of liberation. We encourage students to join us at any level,” Khoury said.
Inside the EMU, SJP projected several messages on the walls, including one message that said “ALL EYES ON RAFAH! END THE SIEGE ON GAZA NOW,” highlighting the over 28,000 people and over 12,000 children martyred, more than 8,00 people missing and the over 67,000 people injured since the Oct. 7 attack.
“The projection was so people can understand the severity of the situation in a physical projection,” Khoury said.
SJP also dropped several banners from the 2nd floor of the EMU.
“The banner drops is a physical reminder of what we are facing right now,” Khoury said.
Attendees participated in a 10 minute die-in, an organizing strategy to help people visualize the number of “martyred” Palestinians, according to Younes.
“It’s gruesome, but it shows the amount of people that have died,” UO student Cody Boswell said. “It’s to show the brutality.”
Rally goers then marched around the EMU Green, ending the rally at the EMU Amphitheater.
SJP encouraged members to attend the March 11 Board of Trustees meeting, where it will ask the board to divest from companies they claim support Israel, including Sabra Hummus, Starbucks Coffee and Amazon.
