SJP Demonstration The Xavierite
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) hosted a One Year of Genocide demonstration on Oct. 7 in the Schmitt Quad at noon. The Saint Xavier University (SXU) Palestinian community gathered to share their personal experiences of dealing with Israeli occupation; the day also marks one year of the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
SXU staff and students came forward to express their first or most recent encounters with the Israeli occupation, in the presentation of “occupying the quad”. Historical lectures of occupation, recitations of poems, and speeches regarding the importance of being resilient for those who can not protest and advocate for themselves.
Jena Kanaan, President of SJP, opened the event mentioning the continued struggle of protesting against the genocide of her Palestinian people for a whole year. As she said, SJP had hoped to return this semester without the continued need to voice against the destruction of her homeland.
“Today we are here after one year,” said Kanaan. “One year of massacres, blood, pain, destruction, heartbreak, as my board and I concluded our last semester with four demonstrations. We pray that this semester, we would come back to planning events that weren’t protesting the genocide of our people. Here we are all still heartbroken and grieving, not only our losses in Palestine, but in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.
Currently, at least, 96,794 Palestinians have been killed and 41,788 are wounded since the beginning of Oct. 7, states Reuters.
“This day marks the very important day for Palestinians in terms of resistance,” Kaanan continues. “It also marks the one year of genocide, so today we honor all our martyrs and honor resistance.”
Kanaan expressed that Palestinians are not accustomed to violence as the Western media portrays, and the systematic dehumanization of Arabs was an extremely painful realization from the extent it had become. Making it impossible to function in daily life.
Kanaan mentions the severity of hardship Palestinian children face in Gaza. Rasha, a 10-year-old girl, writes a will to her uncle urging him to take care of her siblings, divide her belongings, and to not mourn her death. On Sept. 30, both Rasha and her brother Ahmed were martyred by an Israeli airstrike.
“10-year-olds writing wills in refugee camps [and] getting bombed will never be normal, let us reflect on what this past year in a broader aspect has taught us,” said Kanaan.
“I just want to put into perspective, Gaza is smaller than just the city of Chicago and Israel and with U.S. dollars has dropped 75,000 tons of bombs on Gaza,” voiced Kanaan. “75,000 [tons] murdering over 300,000 people. Now imagine how people would react if just one single bomb dropped onto the city of Chicago.”
In Kanaan’s mother’s native village of Tulkarem, Israel had bombed a refugee camp only three days before SJP’s event took place. “This is the first time in twenty years that Israel has used a fire jet bomb to bomb the West Bank,” Kanaan commented.
“This year is defined by collectiveness. They seek to divide us and they seek to fracture our unity, but we stand together balanced by love. We struggled and when we are all liberated, we will come to this very spot and we will rejoice together,” expresses Kanaan. “Our people are not numbers and statistics. And statistics will not erase the act of genocide.
History and Political Science professor, Matthew Costello Ph.D., gave a speech on the history of occupation in Palestine by Israel to audiences.
Rola Othman, Director of Client Services in Information Technology, spoke of her first encounter of the occupation before her family left for the United States when she was seven years old.
“The first memory I have is looking up at the street and a caravan of the occupation forces coming down this hill where we live, and coming towards our house,” Othman recalled. “You can see a cousin coming down the hill [from her house] and all of a sudden the occupying forces stop her in the middle of the street and start grabbing at her.
All of a sudden you see a group of men and try to take her back because there was curfew during the day, and people weren’t supposed to be walking the streets.”
Othman’s father, uncle, and other men of the village had come in the defense of protecting Othamn’s cousin, as the violence Palestinian women endured once taken by the Israeli occupation were well known.
She says despite being a toddler when witnessing the traumatic events, she still clearly remembers her father being covered in blood, including his face and back. His clothes were also shredded, as he was severely beaten by Israeli forces with chains and anything available as Othman’s father covered his head with his hands.
After her father was able to escape towards their home, Othman’s mother aided in hiding him underneath their bed. Once the Israeli force arrived in an attempt to arrest her father, Othman recalls avoiding looking in the direction of the bed, as cried in fear of her father being arrested. He was not found. However, her uncle had been taken.
Upon Othman’s return to Palestine as a visit in 1986, she witnessed a Palestinian being shot in front of her by Israeli forces; this happened again during her visit in 1991.
Dahlia Ihmud, social media manager of SJP, recited a poem during the demonstration called, “24/7” in which she reveals her trauma she endured as a Palestinian child living under occupation, including the Palestinian struggle for freedom.
“I wanted to speak about it [poem] just because it’s one thing that it’s a year of the genocide and its one thing that people are currently killed,” Ihmud mentioned. “But it’s another thing living through that and experiencing that while feeling you don’t have a good platform or basis to stand on and share that story.”
A lyric from Ihmud’s poem, “I run to wake my mom, fear in my heart” entails the moments she ran to her mother, urging her to turn off the phone, in fear the settlers would see light from the windows during the late evening. She mentioned during her time living in Palestine, including the summers she visited, settlers commonly would cause trouble during every stay.
“Now I am here thriving at a university with that privilege, but I have the same stories they do, but not the connections they do, so sharing my experience is not to diminish anyone else’s stories, it’s only to exemplify and being that bridge and I think that’s so important.”
Junior Jenna Hamdan hasn’t witnessed occupation personally, though is affected by the occupation from the exile of her homeland after her grandparents were refugees from Palestine in 1948. She spoke of members of her family longing to return back to their homeland as multiple generations have been separated from living in Palestine.
“I always think about what it would be like if they were never evicted, what we would be doing by the waters, beaches, [and] witnessing Al-Aqsa,” Hamdan says It’s unfortunate to see that people think that what they’re doing is just normalized, the fact that everyone is so desensitized and tries to ignore how pain and suffering Palestinians are going through every single day.”
Hamdan spoke on the importance of keeping her Palestinian cultures and traditions alive, despite not being able to live in Palestine. Connecting to historical tatreez (embroidery) traditions that have been passed down generations, or wearing henna.
“I promise you our roots, traditions, and everything will not be forgotten no matter how much they try to displace us, they try to move us,” Hamdan continues. “Palestine will always be in our heart, our story will always be in our heart, and even though I never got the opportunity and my grandparents never got the opportunity to visit back, Palestine was always passed down to us through their memories,”
Duaah Hazen, secretary of SJP, gave a speech on the crucial importance of continuing to lift our voices for the those who are desperately need it.
“We carry their names, their faces, their stories in our heart and we refuse to let the world forget,” says Hazen. “But this pain is not new. It’s just not new, it’s just not about the events of the past. It’s about decades of suffering, decades of violence, decades of injustice that began long before Oct.7. stretching back to 1948.
What we are witnessing is not isnt a conflict, it’s a genocide. A systematic attempt to destroy and erase an entire generation of life. Our hearts ache for our brothers and sisters in Lebanon and Syria as well, who we now endure the same suffering in fear.”
As the the yearlong genocide and ethnic cleansing continues, Hazen says these catastrophe shouldn’t be normaize.
“We must keep standing up, not just for ourselves but for those who no longer can. For the children who have been silenced, for the families who will never be whole again. We must keep going because we owe it to those who lost everything.”
Who are we to stop now, when they never had the chance, who are we to fall silent when their screams still echo the ruins of their homes. Let us honor those we lost, demanding the world’s attention, let us honor them by standing united in our demand of justice. Let us not forget their names and let us not forget their voices”
Kanaan mentioned there are many people who are still not aware of the genocide happening in Gaza, despite being ongoing for a full year. “Some people just really don’t know what’s going on outside of their own bubble and they don’t know what’s going on. It’s something that doesn’t affect them personally,” she commented.
“I can’t believe it’s been one year of genocide while the world stays silent and our tax dollars are funding it,” said Noor Abdullah, an atendee to the event. “I think it was really beautiful and very riveting. It was really sincere and authentic to hear everyone’s stories”
The event closed with a muslim held by Majid Matariyeh, treasurer of SJP, and a christian prayer held by Tatiana Alaraji, student advising center.