CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Wednesday morning marked 24 hours since pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up a tent encampment on the quad at DePaul University.
“I'm skipping all my classes for the rest of the week,” said DePaul sophomore Henna Ayesh.
Ayesh said she's focused on protesting DePaul's investment in companies that she said are “funding the genocide against Palestinians.”
“I have family back home, and since I have tuition money going into their genocide, the least I can do is try to prevent that from happening again,” she said.
Ayesh says the encampment has remained peaceful, though some neighbors say they're still "concerned" about safety.
"I'm a father of three kids: 10, 8, and 6,” said Jeff, a Chicago native. “My children go to school across the street. We're Jewish."
Jeff said he's worried about the demonstration encouraging hateful language and rhetoric against Jewish community.
"There's rage,” he said. “There's anger. There's intimidation. There's bullying, from the people we heard. That is scary. My concern is for the safety, the community"
DePaul isn’t the only college campus that’s seen similar demonstrations pop up over the past couple of weeks. Students at the University of Chicago also assembled a tent camp and issued similar demands expressed by DePaul demonstrators.
An encampment at Northwestern’s Deering Meadow stayed up for five days before administrators struck a deal with protesters to clear tents from the field.
Following Northwestern’s deal, the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest said Northwestern’s deal made the university “a safe space for antisemitism.”
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