‘If you're not with Palestine, you're not with humanity’: Students rally for Gaza at AUB

BEIRUT — Keffiyehs, Palestinian flags, calls for boycotts, and pro-Hamas slogans. At the American University of Beirut (AUB), in Beirut's Hamra neighborhood, around 300 students demonstrated on Tuesday in solidarity with the people of Gaza in their seventh month under the bombs, calling in particular on the campuses to put an end to their collaboration with companies associated with Israel.

This demonstration, like those at other universities in Lebanon, was organized as students across the world, particularly in the United States, have spent the last several weeks mobilizing large-scale protests and encampments against Israel's war on Gaza and America's support for it.

Despite the pouring rain, many AUB students stood outdoors in solidarity with the Palestinian cause, Apr. 30, 2024. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)

AUB students holding signs of solidarity for Gaza and in protest against the ongoing investment in arming Israel, Apr. 30, 2024. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)

Despite the rain, more than one hundred students gathered at AUB's entrance, and police and the Lebanese Army were deployed there too. Inside the campus, dozens of others demonstrated, in a relatively timid sit-in, as southern Lebanon continues to suffer daily bombing campaigns by Israel. 

Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed over 350 people, including over 50 civilians, since Oct. 8, according to L'Orient Today's count. 

One AUB student, who preferred to remain anonymous, considered that attendance at the sit-in was affected by some students' concerns that they would lose their scholarship funding should they participate in the protest and therefore "no longer be able to continue their studies."

Civilians also joined the AUB students in today's rally for Gaza, Apr. 30, 2024. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)

However, the demonstration was tacitly authorized by the AUB administration, a university official told Al-Jadeed, assuring that it "did not require approval."

"Our university has always shown solidarity with Palestine," the official said. Despite these assurances, some students remained reluctant to be seen at the demonstration. In the United States, hundreds of students have been arrested or suspended for protesting Israel's war on Gaza on their campuses.

AUB students march outside the university campus carrying a large Palestinian flag, Apr. 30, 2024. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)

‘An end to the occupation'

"It's a struggle between those who believe in humanity and the enemies of humanity," Tarek Abou Hazem, a Palestinian activist at the AUC protest, told L'Orient Today.

Around him, students chanted slogans like "When you are a university student, you should also learn what genocide is," and "There is only one solution: end the occupation."

"If you're not with Palestine, you're not with humanity," another activist said.

Yara Assad, a student at Saint-Joseph University, said she had come to the sit-in in front of AUB "because the demands of all Lebanese students concerning Palestine are the same."

A student places the Palestinian flag on the statue of Daniel Bliss, the founder of AUB, Apr. 30, 2024. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)

Close by, Arsalan Snoussi, a French-Algerian, self-proclaimed "communist activist," and a teacher in France, said he was not afraid of losing his job for speaking out about Palestine.

"I would give my life for this cause, even if I had to lose my job and my nationality," he said.

On several occasions, slogans praising Hamas leaders could be heard from within the crowd, in particular, chants in support of Yahya Sinwar and Mohammad Deif, head of the al-Qassam Brigades, the group's military wing.

At the various institutions where other demonstrations were held, the students' demands centered mainly on boycotting "companies that are complicit in the Israeli occupation."

In particular, AUB students called on the university to "boycott HP, a company that supplies technology to the occupation to target the Palestinian people and commit massacres against them."

A crowded university hall packed with enthusiastic students showing support for Gaza, Apr. 30, 2024. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)

They also called on the university to terminate contracts, agreements, or sponsorships with any company on the list of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, a Palestinian-led movement that encourages boycotts, divestment, and economic sanctions against Israel.

McDonald's barricaded

A statement from the student movement explained that the sit-ins were organized in solidarity with the worldwide student movement. Students at the Lebanese University (public) demanded that their institution end its contracts with the technology companies Cisco, Huawei, and Oracle, listed as culpable for their affiliation with Israel, by the BDS movement.

A stone's throw from the Bliss Street sit-in, McDonald's was barricaded. Concrete blocks had been placed in front of the entrance and signs put up in the windows. Along with Starbucks and Coca-Cola, the fast-food chain is one of several American companies boycotted by Israel's critics in the Middle East since the start of the Gaza war, which has led to a drop in its sales in the region in recent months. The fast-food chain was particularly criticized when its franchise in Israel announced that it was offering meals to Israeli soldiers.

Three students wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh stand outside the university while chanting in support of Gaza, Apr. 30, 2024. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)

Sit-ins also took place at other universities, such as the Lebanese American University in Beirut (LAU), in the Koraytem district, where dozens of students chanted slogans in support of Hezbollah, according to our local journalist Anne-Marie el-Hage. A few dozen students and teachers also organized a "symbolic sit-in" in front of a branch of the Lebanese University in Saida, according to our local correspondent Mountasser Abdallah.