PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the University of Pennsylvania marched through Center City Thursday evening and set up an encampment right in the heart of campus, following a movement of students at schools across the country to protest the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Students and activists slept in about 20 tents by the Ben Franklin statue in front of College Hall, by 34th and Walnut streets. A Penn police vehicle was parked nearby Friday morning.
The students are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, and for the university to divest from Israel and companies that benefit from the war.
“For us, it’s important that we communicate our feelings, our concerns about the humanitarian crisis. This is the reason why we are here,” student Rubiel Cibaja told NBC10. “We feel secure right now. Not all the days we feel secure, but right now we feel that we can express ourselves and make our voices heard.”
Protests have been taking place at college campuses around the country. Locally, encampments were also created at Swarthmore College and the University of Delaware.
The University of Pennsylvania said in a statement that it respects and supports the right to protest peacefully but “the right to free expression and to protest on our campus is not and can never be absolute. We will not permit protest and speech when it devolves into words and actions that violate Penn’s policies, disrupt University business, or contribute to an intimidating, hostile, or violent environment on our campus.”
Penn has been at the center of controversy since the war began, as critics said the university did not do enough to protect Jewish students from antisemitism. A Muslim, Arab and Palestinian student advisory group also reported a number of Islamophobic incidents.
As of Friday, Penn said there have been no reports of threatening or violent behavior at the encampments. No one has been arrested.
Pennsylvania state Rep. Rick Krajewski, a university alumnus, said he was inspired by what he saw Thursday night.
“To see them exercise their right to protest and to organize … I’m grateful to be able to witness it.”
He joined state Senator Nikil Saval and representatives from Councilmember Jamie Gauthier’s office at the encampment Friday to support students and remind them of their rights.
“We’re also here to show that we’re watching, we’re making sure things don’t escalate, and we ask the same from Penn and the police department,” Krajewski said.
Student protests over the Israel-Hamas war have popped up on an increasing number of college campuses following last week’s arrest of more than 100 demonstrators at Columbia University. The arrests backfired though, acting as an inspiration for other students across the country and motivating protesters at Columbia to regroup.
As the death toll mounts in the war in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis worsens, student protesters are demanding schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies they say are enabling the conflict. Some Jewish students say the protests have veered into antisemitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus, partly prompting the calls for police intervention.
Since the Israel-Hamas war began, the U.S. Education Department has launched civil rights investigations into dozens of universities and schools in response to complaints of antisemitism or Islamophobia. Among those under investigation are many colleges facing protests, including Harvard and Columbia.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.