Students gathered together on the Risman Plaza Tuesday to demand a ceasefire on the ongoing attacks in the Gaza Strip as a result of the Israel-Hamas War.

Carmen Barghouty, president of the Arab Student Association and a senior psychology major, said the issues pertaining to a ceasefire are important as they pertain to the subject matter of race and community.

“This is an issue on race and community, and honestly this should be important to everyone right now,” Barghouty said. “If these are the standards we are going to accept now, who’s to say it’s not going to happen to another group again.” 

The protest was organized by multiple organizations, including Kent State Arab Student Association, Kent State Students for a Democratic Society, Students for Justice in Palestine, Muslim Student Association and the Progressive Student Union. 

At the protest’s commencement, Yaseen Shaikh, president of SJP and a senior computer science major, addressed the crowd. Shaikh alleged Sean McArdle, a professor at Kent State’s Stark regional campus, started going on an anti-Palestinian and xenophobic rant during a class.

Shaikh said attendees could scan a QR code on fliers handed out to access a pre-drafted email. They then could send their emails to university administrators urging disciplinary action toward the professor.

In an email response to KentWired, McArdle said he decided he will no longer be instructing the course in which the incident took place.

“I know that tensions are high, and emotions are running hot right now, but there is more than a century of complex geopolitical history involved in this conflict and an argument in a graphic design class is not helping to solve the issue,” McArdle said in an email response. “From my perspective, some students in the discussion were advocating for the human rights of one group of people while dismissing the plight of others, specifically the LGBTQ and Jewish communities. To ignore human rights violations because they are inconvenient is not acceptable in my eyes. Although I have not been accurately represented in this regard, I acknowledge that there were better ways to disagree in the moment, and do not care to hash this out publicly any further.”

After Shaikh, Christian Heller, SDS president and a junior peace and conflict studies major, spoke, reading from the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment on the Crime of Genocide.

Heller proceeded to list alleged war crimes committed by the Israeli government.

“Collective punishment is defined as war crime under the Geneva Conventions,” Heller said. “Over 90% of the more than 11,000 dead in Gaza were civilians. A 90% civilian casualty rate, this is collective punishment.”

Heller said other war crimes included depriving civilians of essential goods and the alleged usage of white phosphorus which was reported by Human Rights Watch.

“Yet, Israel has consistently been dropping [white phosphorus] on the civilians of Gaza,” Heller said. “It causes severely painful partial to third degree burns which leave behind a characteristic yellow color and garlic-like odor.”

In addition to the odor and color of the burn, smoke may come from the burn site and there is a possibility wounds may reignite while being treated, Heller said.

Heller said Palestinians are being informed to leave Southern Gaza because of the Israeli military after initially evacuating Gaza. 

“The Israeli government will not stop until every Palestinian is dead or driven off their land,” Heller said.

Heller said Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, previously said Israel is fighting “human animals” and Ariel Kallner, a representative of the Knesset or Israel’s parliament, defined the goal of the operation to be a Nakba, referring to a displacement and dispossession of Palestinians of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. 

“These are but just a few quotes members of the Israeli government have been saying in the past month,” Heller said. “We must take them at their word when they say these things.”

In agreement with Heller, Shaikh spoke on the subject of freedom.

“[The United States government] thinks that our freedom should come at the cost of other people’s freedom,” Shaikh said. “But rather I think, and I think you all will agree with me, our freedom should only come when everyone else has freedom, too.”

Shaikh then told a story about a Black activist from the civil rights movement visiting Palestine and noticing the difference in license plates and places certain individuals can go or cannot go.

“[The activist] said, ‘you know what, I know what this looks like,’” Shaikh said. “Because the struggle for freedom, the struggle for equality is universal. We’ve seen this on our own soil.”

Before concluding his speech, Shaikh said he wanted attendees to hold up a mirror to the individuals in power tomorrow.

“We have flags, we have signs with us today, that is what we are holding up, but tomorrow I want you all to hold up a mirror,” Shaikh said. “A mirror to all the people in power, hold up a mirror to our elected officials so that they can see they are being complicit in a genocide.”

The final speaker was Yazun Issawi, vice-president of SJP and sophomore computer information systems major, who spoke on his previous experiences from 2015 while visiting family in a Palestinian-occupied territory when he was 11.

“I was walking around in my village in occupied Jerusalem, where me, and my sister and my cousins were systematically stopped and questioned,” Issawi said.

Issawi said the guards who stopped him, and his family members were aware of Issawi and his sister being Americans which prompted them to nearly arrest the two for not having their Visas in hand.

Issawi’s cousin then urged them to walk away from the guards, but then one of Issawi’s cousin began to scream to them to run as she saw the guards loading up a grenade launcher, he said.

“All I heard was tank, tank, tank and tank behind me… and that was before the grenade exploded,” Issawi said. “Luckily, I only ended up with a second degree burn to the back of my thigh.”

Issawi said although he received a scar on his thigh, he is still left with the mental scar.

“If they do that to me, an American, imagine what they do to Palestinians living there, who have been indigenous to this land for thousands of years,” Issawi said.

Before going to paint the rock on Hilltop Drive in support of the ceasefire, Barghouty encouraged attendees to text “Ceasefire” to 5190 which is compiled to be sent to government representatives urging for a ceasefire, she said.

“I know a lot of you have [texted] most of you are just coming here showing your support – says enough,” Barghouty said. “But we have to keep posting, keep spreading the messages, educate your neighbors, educate your friends.”