Students rally for pro-Palestinian march on SU campus

A demonstration in support of Palestinians drew hundreds of supporters who marched across Syracuse University’s campus on Thursday afternoon.

The international call to action, dubbed “Shut It Down For Palestine,” included class walkouts on college campuses across the country to advocate for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The protest began at the steps of Maxwell Hall where supporters unrolled a banner with the names of more than 6,700 Palestinians killed in Gaza following the Hamas terrorist attacks beginning on Oct. 7.

With signs, Palestinian flags and bullhorns in hand, supporters chanted as they marched to SU’s administration offices in Crouse-Hinds Hall and then to the National Resource Veterans Center on Waverly Avenue. For more than an hour, speakers took turns rallying the crowd.

Gaza native Salah Mikki, who was driving near SU’s campus when he saw the protest, expressed his worries for his family in Gaza and lamented his inability to be with them.

“I’m free in America but I feel like I’m in a prison,” Mikki said. “My family is there, and I can’t see them.”

Following the protest, SU provost Gretchen Ritter and chief student experience officer Allen Groves sent a campus-wide email in response to a video circulating on social media that showed a walk-out speaker naming specific Jewish campus organizations as “complicit” in genocide.

“While Syracuse University remains strongly committed to protecting free speech and academic freedom, we must respond when conduct, language or action directly threatens the safety of our students,” the administrators’ email stated, noting that the demonstration was “otherwise peaceful.”

Also in the email statement, the administrators said SU is in contact with local and national law enforcement agencies to monitor threats made against students.