Hundreds of community members, including University of Texas and Austin Community College students, gathered in front of the Texas Capitol in Austin to march downtown on Sunday, October 15 in protest of the ongoing genocide and occupation of Palestine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
UT Austin\u2019s Palestine Solidarity Committee hosted an \u201cAll Out for Palestine\u201d protest to \u201chonor the martyrs in the midst of an ongoing resistance against apartheid Israel\u201d as stated on their Instagram. Protesters held signs that read \u2018Stop U.S. Aid to Apartheid Israel\u2019 and \u201cYup. We Exist. Jews for Palestinian Lives. Ceasefire Now\u2019 chanting in both English and Arabic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt looked like we had well over a thousand people here today.\u201d said the PSC organizer who wishes to remain anonymous for safety reasons. \u201cIt was absolutely fantastic to see the support that we get from people as opposed to the type of support we dont get from the US government, from [the] media, [and] from our educational institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is where change really happens,\u201d the organizer emphasized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For context, the Gaza Strip has been carpet bombed in response to the Hamas attack that occurred October 7. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, nearly 9,500 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began a bombing and ground campaign. Thousands of civilians have been injured and are left with little to no water, food, resources, or power in most hospitals after Israel cut off electricity in Gaza more than once. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCivilians must be protected at all times. International humanitarian law must be respected,\u201d the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, stated on his Instagram in response to the ongoing bombing of Gaza. \u201cA humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in front of our eyes\u2026 History will judge us all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The PSC aims to spread awareness on current events and amplify Palestinian voices. According to event organizers, \u201cThis narrative surrounding what happened [on] October 7 was that it was unprompted, when in reality, this was an effect of 75 years of occupation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt’s absolutely horrible what\u2019s going on and we denounce it completely,\u201d the organizer said. \u201cThey see this as an excuse to completely get rid of Palestinans\u2026 this is collective punishment, it is a war crime committed every single day, for the past 7 days and the media has no intent of pushing back on this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGaza went from an open air prison to an eradication camp,\u201d the organizer stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe want these people to not have to live scared to fall asleep and not wake up tomorrow because their house caved in on them. We want these people to have no fear that their children can go to school the next day. We want these people to have no fear that they won\u2019t lose (someone) to an unjust arrest the next morning,\u201d the organizer explained.. \u201cFor some reason, this is crazy to Zionists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The organizer proceeded to call out the speech held by President Biden during this week as well. \u201cWe saw Joe Biden get on air and spread Israeli war-mongering propaganda, that Israel intentionally disseminated, to create this false narrative around what\u2019s going on in Palestine and in Gaza that they think gives them the right to exercise unchecked aggression against Palestinian civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen Palestinians show peaceful protests, [they] get backlash for that. For example, in 2018 [during] the Great March of Return in Gaza, Gazans were hand-in-hand walking towards the border fence and were shot [with] live ammunition by the [Israeli Defense Forces]. Tear gas was thrown at them, and over 4,900 people were injured or killed. The whole world stayed silent for that,\u201d the organizer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese are regular everyday people like you and I. They have a right to exist, a right to their land, a right to resist. It\u2019s enshrined in UN law,\u201d stated the organizer. \u201cThese are fundamental rights these people have, yet their rights are being stripped away from them on an everyday basis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The organizer then explained how the PSC held an education teaching called \u2018Palestine 101\u2019 on October 12 about the \u201chistory leading up to today\u2019s events in Gaza,\u201d but the activist said they were harassed by three Israeli men in appearing to be in their thirties. Two of the three men stated they were in the IDF. According to this testimony, these three men were not UT students, yet managed to get access to university grounds and make members \u201cfeel unsafe, threatened, and intentionally target [them] with hate speech and violence.\u201d The organizer explained how the men proceeded to call PSC members \u201cterrorists\u201d and told them to \u201cwait till they\u2019re in Israel next week killing all the Arabs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis was particularly close to the Arab, Palestinian, [and] Muslim community at UT.\u201d they add.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In regard to UT President Jay Hartzell\u2019s email sent to UT students about the ongoing events in the Middle East, the organizer explained how he only included a reference promising to protect Jewish students on campus. \u201cThe PSC wants to make this extremely clear. We 100% support the protection of Jewish students (on) or off UT campus. It is so important that every student at our campus has a voice, a safe space to speak, learn, and be a part of (the) community,\u201d said the organizer. \u201cBut what Jay Hartzell said only applied to Jewish students. He intentionally marginalized (us) by leaving us out of the email- Muslim students, Palestinian students, and Arab students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhere is our protection? Clearly it wasn\u2019t there on Thursday,\u201d the organizer emphasized. \u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to do the work that we\u2019re doing [whether] in safety or not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The PSC will be hosting more protests, such as a \u201cTexas State-Wide Protest\u201d on Sunday, November 12 at the Texas Capitol. The march will be to show support for the people of Gaza and to urgently demand an immediate ceasefire. PSC will also be hosting a walkout at UT in November to \u201ccall attention to UT Austin\u2019s failure to condemn this genocide and address how it affects our on campus and broader Palestinian community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt the end of the day, what Palestinian students [and] what Palestinian organizers really want is for our people back in Palestine to be granted the basic necessities and human rights that every human in the world deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hundreds March at the State Capitol in Solidarity with Palestine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4103,"featured_media":8381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/157\/2024\/02\/20231029_Gaza_014-1-1024x576.jpg\")
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