Breaking: SJP, JVP set up Gaza solidarity encampment at Pitzer

At 6 a.m. on Friday, April 26, Claremont SJP and JVP student organizers made Pitzer the latest college to join in Palestine solidarity occupations across the country, erecting a Gaza solidarity encampment on the Pitzer Mounds.

“We’re doing this in solidarity with other organizers across the country at different schools,” an SJP organizer, who identified themselves as a Pitzer senior, told Undercurrents. “We’re also doing this to put all eyes on Gaza in light of the ongoing genocide as we’ve passed day 200.”

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On Instagram and in cardboard signs strung up near the encampment, students announced their demands for full divestment from Israel and weapons manufacturers, academic boycott of Israeli universities and dropping the disciplinary charges against students arrested at the April 5 Alexander Hall sit-in.

The encampment follows one set up by Pomona Divest from Apartheid that lasted for eight days before the arrests on April 5, as well as dozens of more recent, and many ongoing, encampments at Columbia University, NYU, USC, UCLA and more.

More than 500 students have been arrested on college campuses for participating in Palestine solidarity actions across the country this week, including more than 100 yesterday at Emerson, 94 at USC and almost 60 at UT Austin on Wednesday, and 120 at NYU and at least 47 at Yale on Monday.

Last Thursday, NYPD arrested more than 100 students when sweeping an encampment at Columbia University. Students subsequently restored the encampment and continued occupying the lawn.