Overview
- Activists outside Columbia distributed a four-page 'Columbia Intifada' newspaper that described Gazans as having torn down the fences of a modern concentration camp, with no public authorship attributed.
- Organizers told attendees not to speak with reporters, directed media to unidentified liaisons, and many protesters concealed their identities with keffiyehs and masks.
- On campus, Columbia marked the date with 1,200 empty chairs on the South Lawn to honor those killed on Oct. 7, as Jewish students held a vigil at the Sundial.
- Former student Mahmoud Khalil, a 2024 protest leader arrested by ICE in March, addressed the Columbia crowd and denounced Zionism and Israel’s legitimacy.
- In Midtown, Harvard graduate Abdullah Akl told a separate rally outside the News Corp building that activists would show up stronger than on the first Oct. 7.