Students at George Washington University, Georgetown set up encampment in solidarity with Gaza
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WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — Hundreds of students at Georgetown University and George Washington University (GWU) staged an encampment and protested the war in Gaza on Thursday.
George Washington University officials announced that they would clear the protesters who gathered for the protests at the U Yard around 7 p.m., yet pro-Palestinian students said they planned on staying.
The students who spoke to DC News Now said they are demanding the area universities divest any investments from Israel over the Palestinian deaths in Gaza due to the Israeli war.
“Students are demanding that the universities are held accountable for their role in the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” said Mahmoud Beydoun, a student at George Washington University. Beydoun is Palestinian.
“More than anything, we’re demanding that the universities are transparent about their investments, that they protect the pro-Palestinian students and that allow speech, freedom of speech,” he said.
But Dylan Shugar, who is Jewish and a student at George Washington, said that the protests concern him.
“These protests definitely do you know, make me feel unsafe on campus,” he said. “To hear some of the rhetoric that’s been that’s been spewed today at this protest, is pretty, is pretty hard to hear.”
The Georgetown Voice, Georgetown’s student-run magazine, reported in a post on X that “Students at Georgetown Washington University along with students from Georgetown and other universities in the DMV have established an encampment in solidarity with Gaza at University Yard on GW’s campus.”
In an update a few hours after the encampment began, the Georgetown Voice said over 100 students, faculty and staff were marching from Georgetown to GWU’s campus along M St. NW.
College students across the United States joined peers in New York, who have been protesting the use of force by the Israeli government in Gaza over the course of the past week.
On Tuesday, students at the University of Maryland sat in at Hornbake Plaza. The group planted flags and posted pro-Palestine posters.
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