Harvard hosts record number of pro-Hamas rallies in one week: report
The school newspaper reported at least five rallies between Saturday, Oct. 14, and the following Saturday.
The protests included walk-outs, die-ins, marches, and various disruptions.
Harvard’s campus was alive with pro-Palestine rallies last week, featuring one on Friday, one on Thursday, and two on Wednesday, according to reporting by the Harvard Crimson and CBS News.
Despite substantial pushback after a group of Harvard students published an anti-Semitic attack blaming Israel as the sole party responsible for the violence in Gaza, Wednesday featured apparently two rallies in one day on campus. In one, students walked out of class.
During the other, a pro-Palestine student group organized a gathering in front of Harvard Business School to stage a “die-in” demonstration. Students lay on the ground “to demand an end to violence in Gaza and express solidarity with Palestine following the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital blast,” the Crimson reports.
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The die-in protest was a response to the explosion in Gaza from a stray rocket fired from Palestinian territory, exploding a local hospital.
Footage captured of the event shows students lying on the ground silently, some holding signs.
“Hundreds” of Harvard students and faculty attended the rally, the Crimson reports.
Then, on Thursday, students gathered and marched from the Science Center, through the Caspersen Student Center, and to Harvard Square. From there, they clattered their noisemakers—like buckets and sticks—together at the Kennedy School courtyard.
The Crimson reports that the marchers even blocked traffic at the JFK Street intersection for two traffic light cycles.
All the while, the marchers “were accompanied by a significant police presence.”
Since the rallies began, Harvard announced that it would increase its security.
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The Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Graduate Students 4 Palestine, the primary organizers of Wednesday and Thursday’s events, planned yet another rally on Friday at Harvard’s Medical School, according to the Crimson article.
Additionally, the Crimson reports a rally on Saturday, Oct. 14, that the Crimson alleges drew over 1,000 people. All told reports determine there were at least five rallies in the one-week period from Saturday, Oct. 14, through Friday, Oct. 20.
All parties were contacted for comment. The article will be updated accordingly.
