Students, community members protest to mark one year of Israel-Hamas war

About 70 people gathered outside the William Pitt Union on Wednesday night to protest the ongoing war in Gaza because it has been one year since the Oct. 7 attacks that started the Israel-Hamas war in 2023. 

The event was co-organized by various pro-Palestine groups at Pitt as part of Pitt Apartheid Divest’s “Week of Rage” events. The counterprotest was organized by Students Supporting Israel in Pittsburgh. 

Both protests started outside of the William Pitt Union in Gallagher Plaza, but Pitt Police and City of Pittsburgh Police moved the groups across the street to Soldiers and Sailors Lawn. According to University Spokesperson Jared Stonesifer, the groups did not have adequate reservations to use the space.

“While the Gallagher Plaza can be reserved by registered student organizations, no reservations were made for this evening, so event organizers were asked to move out of the area,” Stonesifer said.

Pro-Palestine groups chanted, “Israel, Israel, how many kids have you killed today?” They also repeated, “From the River to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Many attendees refused to comment for The Pitt News because of anxieties surrounding increased police presences at protests after pro-Palestine encampments and arrests in April and June. 

Karim Safieddine, a sociology Ph.D. candidate at Pitt, described the ongoing war in Gaza as a “catastrophe.”

“It continues to proceed, and it expand[ed] onto Lebanon and is becoming a full blown regional war,” Safieddine said. “In Lebanon alone, in the past few weeks, we’ve had more than 2,000 deaths.”

Pro-Israel groups wore Israeli flags and held up posters with pictures, names and ages of hostages from Israel. One student protesting with a pro-Israel group, who withheld her identity for privacy reasons, described seeing pro-Palestine groups on campus as “painful.”

“They’re anti-America,” she said. “What the pro-Israel side is asking for is for them to stop protesting on our campus. Stop asking for divestment from Israel. Pitt does not really invest in Israel’s policies at all. They’re usually donations by either Jewish alumni or Israeli alumni, they’re not really investments in Israel’s military. They’re not funding the genocide.”

Ashira, a Pittsburgh resident who withheld her last name for privacy reasons, feels the pro-Palestine groups are “targeting the wrong people.”

“We’re out here because we’re standing strong and showing that we’re not afraid of people who are here to protest violence,” Ashira said. “We’re just trying to make our statement that every person has the right to live, and we agree that Palestine should be free, but I think that the way that they do it is very violent and antisemitic.”

Safieddine said it’s important for Americans to educate themselves on the conflict because “It is a global world that we are involved in.” The pro-Palestine groups were protesting to call for “freedom, security and liberation” of Palestinian people, according to Safieddine.

“Palestine has begun a global issue of justice, inspiring students across universities to talk about their free speech, to talk about matters of racial justice, and to talk about matters of equality,” Safieddine said. “In reality, we cannot just separate these causes anymore.” 

Safieddine said that the upcoming presidential election is “grim” in regards to Palestinian liberation.

“We see two candidates literally fighting over who is more pro-Israel than the other,” Safieddine said. “We don’t exactly have robust public opinion on the elite level, but we do have a future to protect, and that future requires that we actually pursue a transformative change on the level of the public opinion.”