(1 May 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip – 1 May 2024
1. Poster on tent reading (English): "Thanks for your solidarity! George Washington University"
2. Poster on the tent reading (English) "Thanks for your solidarity! The Ohio State University"
3. Woman holding poster reading (English) "Thanks for your solidarity! Massachusetts, Institute of Technology Harvard"
4. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Abu Yusuf al-Habeel, man displaced from Shati refugee camp:
"It is so wonderful. We thank all the students of American universities who stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their cause: returning to the Gaza Strip, ending the displacement camps, and ending the suffering that the Palestinian people are going through in the displacement camps."
5. Various of children holding posters, thanking multiple American universities
6. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mai Afifi, college student:
++SOUNDBITE PARTIALLY COVERED++
"This solidarity protest is to thank American universities and American students for standing with us and conveying our message to the world to stop the war and genocide taking place in Gaza. I hope that Arab and Islamic universities will stand with us like American universities have and try to stop the genocide because we are students with dreams and ambitions, and we want to complete our university studies and postgraduate studies as well. So I hope the world will stop the war."
7. Poster on tent reading (English) "Thanks for your solidarity! George Washington University"
8. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ali Abdelal, man displaced from Gaza City:
"There has been a bit of an awakening (to the idea) that we are an oppressed and exhausted people, a people with rights. But the entire world is unjust. Today people have begun to wake up and know that we are an oppressed people and because of that the universities have come out in support of Palestine and the people of Palestine."
9. People walking in the street
STORYLINE:
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip held a demonstration on Wednesday to express their gratitude to American college students for carrying out pro-Palestinian protests.
The students are protesting the war’s death toll and are calling for universities to separate themselves from any companies that are advancing Israel’s military efforts in Gaza.
At a camp near the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, people hung up thank you notes to several American universities.
"It is so wonderful. We thank all the students of American universities who stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people," said Abu Yusuf al-Habeel, a man displaced from Shati refugee camp.
The nationwide campus protests began at Columbia in response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza after Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages in October.
Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry.
From coast to coast, demonstrators are sparring over the Israel-Hamas war and its mounting death toll, and the number of arrests at campuses in the US is approaching 1,000 as the final days of class wrap up.
"I hope that Arab and Islamic universities will stand with us like American universities have and that try to stop the genocide because we are students with dreams and ambitions," said Mai Afifi, a college student.
The students’ outcry in the U.S. is forcing colleges to reckon with their financial ties to Israel, as well as their support for free speech.
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