On anniversary of Oct. 7 attack, UC Irvine campus sees protests, prayers

IRVINE, Calif. — On the first anniversary of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks against Israel that have precipitated a wider war in the Middle East, a couple hundred University of California, Irvine, students and faculty marched around the campus Monday calling for an end to the war, an end to the Jewish state and UC divestment from companies affiliated with Israel or American weapons manufacturing.

Nearby UCI’s administrative hall, where the protest began, several Jewish students prayed together to memorialize victims of the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack that one year ago killed more than 1,200 people, including 46 Americans, and was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, according to the U.S. Department of State.

Since then, Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 people, according to Gazan health officials.

From the balcony of the Physical Sciences Lecture Hall, four students unfurled a large banner that read, “Your tuition funds genocide.”

Last May, after a small group of protesters barricaded themselves inside that hall, police responding to a protest arrested 47 people and the pro-Palestine encampment outside was cleared.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer has pressed charges against 10 of those arrested, including two UCI faculty members, while continuing to investigate others, according to his office. All 10 were ordered to appear in court on Oct. 16, DA officials said.

On Monday, there was a smattering of unarmed guards milling around and no visible law enforcement officers near the demonstrators.

Jewish groups said the demonstration was rooted in antisemitism, but Sarah Khalil, a spokesperson for the UCI chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, said Monday’s action was about speaking up for a humanitarian cause.

“We are fighting against our university funding this genocide, funding this regional war,” she said. “This is a humanitarian cause. It’s also against colonialism. It’s about ending this colonial state.”

When the group passed by the campus Starbucks, protesters paused from chanting about war to yell profanities at students waiting in line for coffee, pleading with them to leave the line while making claims that their support of the multinational corporation was circuitously tied to colonialism and genocide.

A couple of those students in line at Starbucks said they supported the group’s right to freedom of speech on campus and were generally sympathetic to their cause, but they were still going to order coffee. Generally, thousands of students walked to and from classes on Monday on a busy fall-term day.

On Sunday night, UCI Hillel held a vigil for those killed a year ago on Oct. 7 and during the war. Before the march began Monday, a small group of Jewish students affiliated with UCI Hillel set up a handful of booths on UCI’s main thoroughfare to raise awareness with passersby about nearly 100 hostages still detained in Gaza by Hamas. One student sat on a folding chair in front of the booths wearing a blindfold and with his hands tied together. A flyer was taped to his shirt with a picture of a young man taken hostage by Hamas.

Daniel Levine, the UCI Hillel rabbi, said the vocal anti-Israel sentiment expressed on campus has created a “very close-knit” Jewish community seeking support from one another while dealing with fear.

UCI Chabad Rabbi Zevi Tennenbaum agreed he has seen more unity among the students, but said he worries that demonstrations are deterring a majority of UCI’s Jewish students from getting involved with religious or cultural organizations.

“Many Jewish students might be hesitant and feel intimidated, ” he said. “They might wonder, ‘What are people going to think of me if I get involved?’ Well, they see these protests and they might think they know the answer to that question.”

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