ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Hundreds of pro-Palestinian students rallied near an encampment that sprang up Monday on the University of Michigan Diag, deploying an approach used by students at other college campuses to pressure the university to divest itself from Israeli companies amid Israel's war with Hamas.

Jewish students stood nearby, many of whom wrapped themselves in Israeli flags, as Jews prepared to celebrate the seven-day Passover holiday, which began Monday at sundown.

The UM encampment included more than two dozen tents that students said they planned to keep up until UM divests in Israel. University officials, including regents, have said they plan to continue their investments and countered that the university's endowment has no direct investment in any Israeli company and indirect investments are a small fraction of 1% of the endowment.

Tensions elsewhere have led to arrests of protesters at Columbia University in New York and Yale University in Connecticut; Harvard University closed the hub of its campus, Harvard Yard, until Friday in anticipation of student protests.

UM student organizers said the encampment is to support Palestinians living in Gaza, where health officials said an estimated 34,000 Palestinians have been killed. About 130 Israeli citizens remain hostages by Hamas since the militant group launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that killed about 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians. Israeli officials have rejected claims of genocide and countered that the Oct. 7 attack on Israel was genocide.

"We are here for our martyrs in Palestine," Salma Hamamy, president of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, a UM Palestinian advocacy group, told the crowd of hundreds during an afternoon rally.

Protesters will continue to honor Palestinians in Gaza and press the university to divest "because this university is entirely complicit in those deaths. As students, we refuse to remain silent as this continues," Hamamy added.

Nia Hall, a first-year education doctoral student from northern California, added that "academic institutions like this one continue to show us ... that they are rooted in structural racism and colonialism" and "students are the moral compass for social movements."

"History will judge poorly upon you (President) Santa Ono, regents and all University of Michigan administration who choose to side with an oppressive force committing genocide rather than support your own students with the moral clarity and ethics to demand justice and divestment," Hall said.

The encampment comes as university leaders across the country, including at UM, are working to balance free speech with safety and inclusion for all students.

Colleen Mastony, UM's spokesperson, said the university will monitor the encampment, especially as final exams begin Thursday.

"Students are able to engage in peaceful protest in many places on campus and, at the same time, the university has a responsibility to maintain an environment that is conducive to learning and academic success," Mastony said. "No one has the right to substantially disrupt university activities or to violate laws or university policies.

"We are working to minimize disruptions to university operations — most especially with classes ending tomorrow and the study period beginning before finals. Safety is always a key priority and, as such, we have increased security on campus. We are carefully monitoring the situation and remain prepared to appropriately address any harassment or threats against any member of our community."

The UM regents have had a policy in place for 20 years that protects UM's $17.9 billion endowment investments from political pressures, Mastony added.

"Much of the money invested through the university’s endowment, for example, is donor funding given to provide long-term financial support for designated purposes," Mastony said.

The Board of Regents restated during a March meeting that UM has no plans to divest.

Before the rally, student Sydni Hite stood near the encampment with other Jewish students and said "antisemitism has been running rampant" on college campuses, including at UM.

"I want to show other Jewish students that we are not alone," said Hite, a Berkley resident. "We are not going to tolerate antisemitism."

Examples of antisemitism at UM have included the removal of signs on campus showing the Israeli hostages in Gaza, she said, "because they're blatantly targeted those posters and they are taking them down and they are just human."

She pointed to a sign outside the encampment that said, "Long Live the Intifada," which she said represents the attacks against Israeli citizens. Rabbi Davey Rosen, CEO of UM Hillel, agreed that the sign is antisemitic.

"It's a very hateful and scary and terrifying term to say to Jewish students and has no place on the campus of the University of Michigan," Rosen said. "I hope the administration ends this immediately."

But Hamamy said that intifada is an Arabic word meaning "resistance" and a "revolution."

"A lot of times non-Arab speakers try to twist the word to demonize us," Hamamy said. "The proper definition of intifada is simply community uprising, shaking off oppression."

Many student activists said efforts to divest have ramped up amid the war and because of the humanitarian crisis involving Palestinians.

The encampment came less than a month after student activists lobbying the university to divest funds from Israel shut down a celebration of high-achieving students at UM's 101th Honors Convocation, the first university event activists have disrupted. UM has since been working on a policy that would ban infringing "on the exercise of others’ speech and activities by disrupting the normal celebrations, activities, and operations of the university."

It was organized by the TAHRIR Coalition, a student-led coalition advocating for divestment in Israel and includes more than 80 student organizations.

Zainab Hakim, a senior from Canton Township, said the protesters were on the Diag after numerous actions in the past year and after the UM administration had refused to meet with them to address their concerns.

"All across the world, people are standing up against Israel, and in its most recent in a long list of crimes, the ongoing genocide in Gaza," Hakim told the crowd. "We stand in the spirit of the 1986 anti-apartheid efforts that were spearheaded in this very Diag by previous generations and organizers."

Hakim was referring to the movement at UM to raise awareness of anti-apartheid in South Africa and eventually convince UM in the 1980s to divest its holdings in the African nation.

During the rally, Murad Idris, a UM professor of political science, hailed the activists for their "bravery."

"We have seen you, a coalition of students from all backgrounds, come together and say, 'We refuse to be silent when there is an ongoing genocide,'" Idris said. "You have modeled the courage of speaking up ... while speaking truth to power, truth to administrators.

"You, our students, are brave and you, our students, give us hope."

Afterward, students marched around the encampment, holding signs and chanting as UM police officers stood nearby: "Disclose! Divest! We will not stop. We will not rest."

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