UNC students put tents back up on quad after hours of pro-Palestine protests

After pro-Palestinian protests that lasted hours Sunday afternoon, students at UNC-Chapel Hill reerected tents they had agreed to take down on Friday, an apparent violation of university policy.

Students started putting the tents back up, which had been dismantled and left flattened over the weekend, just before 7 p.m.

Organizers at the encampment told students who remained on the quad Sunday night that putting the tents back up would come with “some elevated risk,” but urged protesters to stand by the tents, saying “We have safety in numbers” and leading chants of “Who keeps us safe? We keep us safe.”

On Instagram, UNC Students for Justice in Palestine urged students to join the encampment, saying that university officials had told them that the “tents are coming down tonight.”

In a follow-up statement, the student organization said Desirée Rieckenberg, the dean of students, “did not specify whether or not police will conduct this sweep.”

As of 9:30 p.m., hundreds of students remained in and around the tents on the quad, sitting on sheets and folding chairs.

Organizers of the encampment put on a puppet show, and followed with a screening of a documentary about Leila Khaled, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. Khaled is known for hijacking a plane in 1969 and trying to do so again a year later, according to NPR.

The restoration of tents came after hours of protests and a march involving several hundreds of people through the main campus, during which student organizers called on UNC to “disclose” and “divest” from its investments in Israel, echoing similar protests that have broken out at universities across the country.

The rally began at 3 p.m. in front of South Building, with a large crowd of students, faculty, community members and entire families with young children filling Polk Place, the main quad on campus.

Speakers led the crowd in songs, prayers, and many different chants including “free, free Palestine,” “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” “Gaza you are not alone,” and “globalize the intifada.”

Rally organizers also repeated chants of “BDS now,” referring to the international movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel.

Students at UNC began pitching tents on campus on Friday, creating a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

Encampment organizers reached an agreement with UNC officials Friday afternoon to take down the poles of their tents, but left the flattened tents on the quad, which is where they remained during Sunday’s rally — until students decided to put them back up.

Students at many colleges, including at UNC Charlotte have been protesting the ongoing Israel-Hamas War, which began Oct. 7, the Charlotte Observer previously reported. That’s when Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, launched a terrorist attack that killed more than 1,200 Israeli civilians, with 240 hostages being taken.

Since then, Israel has dropped thousands of bombs in Gaza. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed since October, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

During the rally, speakers criticized UNC and other universities for their response to the encampments, and claimed that UNC officials were stopping trash collection and blocking access to restrooms and campus buildings over the weekend.

Students from other Triangle universities including N.C. State attended Sunday’s rally as well. On Instagram, the chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine at N.C. State said it was encouraging its members to come out to the “Triangle Region encampment” at UNC.

“The entire UNC system has extremely insidious and deep rooted investments in the Zionist occupation, and we must tackle that one school at a time, which is why we need to show out united and strong in Chapel Hill,” the N.C. State SJP chapter said in a post before the rally on Sunday.