CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — UNC-Chapel Hill has increased security measures on campus last week as a pro-Palestine student group hosted a “week of resistance,” which includes several events to protest the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
On Oct. 7, one year since the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, UNC Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) hosted a candlelight vigil to “honor martyrs killed by the Israeli occupation over the past year,” The News & Observer reports. The event was held at the Old Well, a campus landmark, which UNC officials installed temporary fences around. The group subsequently held the event just outside of the fence and attached Palestinian flags to the barrier.
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Fences have also been installed around other campus landmarks, including a flagpole outside of the Naval Armory. Last month, during a “Walkout for the West Bank” event hosted by SJP, more than 150 protesters marched through academic buildings and spray-painted pro-Palestine and anti-Israel phrases on the walls, including “Free Gaza” and “Israel is a terror state.” Some demonstrators also vandalized the Naval Armory with spray paint and tore down the American flag outside of the building.
Last spring, demonstrators tore down the American flag from the flagpole on Polk Place, a popular quadrangle on campus, which was where a “Gaza solidarity encampment” was set up. During the four-day encampment, protesters propped open doors to some of the buildings after-hours, allowing those staying in the encampment to use the bathrooms and other facilities overnight, according to The Daily Tar Heel.
Building Access Limited, Security Guards Stationed Outside UNC-Chapel Hill Campus Buildings
This week, students have also been asked to show their school-issued ID cards to enter some classroom buildings. Access is limited to most of the classroom buildings that are located around the perimeter of Polk Place, and signs posted around the area Tuesday reminded people of the school’s policies on the acceptable use of campus facilities, including not breaking down “crowd control barriers” and not damaging or defacing public property.
“Limited access to specific buildings is being implemented out of an abundance of caution as an additional security measure in light of notable planned and potential activities on campus during the week,” the school’s media relations office wrote in an email to The News & Observer.
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Temporary surveillance cameras were also set up around the quad. However, during an interview with The News & Observer, UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts said the increase in cameras is part of a larger effort to comply with recommendations from an after-action report issued following the Aug. 2023 fatal on-campus shooting of UNC faculty member Zijie Yan.
Security guards were also stationed at the main entrances of some buildings Tuesday. In two dormitories, signs were posted to side entrances marking those doors as only exits and instructing students to enter through the buildings’ main doors by showing their student ID.
“UNC’s campus has been turned into a militarized police zone in order to intimidate and deter grieving students from vocalizing any pro-Palestinian support,” SJP wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday. “ID checkpoints, racial profiling, fenced off areas. This is what the university does to uphold Zionist companies that profit from the ongoing genocide.”
UNC Students for Justice in Palestine Hold Additional Events
SJP has hosted a pro-Palestine event each day this week. On Tuesday, the group hosted a fundraiser benefiting Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
On Wednesday, Faculty for Justice in Palestine held a community art build outside Wilson Library to “resist Israel’s scholasticide,” according to the group’s Facebook post. Scholasticide is the intended mass destruction of the education system in a specific place. Some experts estimate more than 80% of schools in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed and more than 5,479 students, 261 teachers, and 95 university professors have been killed since the start of the war.
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The group dubbed Thursday “Kufiya Day,” calling on the campus community to wear the traditional Arabic headdresses to “stand in solidarity with Palestine.”
On Friday, the group picketed outside Memorial Hall during UNC’s University Day to “protest against UNC’s complicity in genocide.” According to the school’s website, University Day is “an occasion to remember the University’s past and celebrate its future.”
“There is no [celebration] of ‘university day’ when there are no universities left in Gaza!” the group wrote on Facebook. “Chancellor Lee Roberts – who led the brutalization of students and community members on April 30 and who refuses to divest from Israel – will be officially ‘installed’ as chancellor during this event.”