Students for Justice in Palestine at Illinois State University [SJP-ISU] held a vigil Monday evening in Uptown Normal on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.
The attacks left about 1,200 Israelis dead and more and some 250 were taken hostage by members of Hamas, according to the Israeli government. A year later, more than 100 hostages are still unaccounted for.
SJP-ISU organized the event to remember the thousands of Palestinian lives lost in the year since. Several dozen attended. Israel’s war in Gaza has killed at least 41,900 Palestinians, and at least 97,300 have been wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Roughly two-thirds of all structures in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged.
Ceasefire efforts have failed numerous times over the course of the war, with negotiations stalling in July after Israel added demands that they remain in control of Gaza’s southern border and became less flexible on the issue of Palestinians returning to their homes.
“The genocide of the Palestinian people has been going on for over 70 years, and within the last year that has escalated significantly,” Andrew Franson, a freshman from Mokena studying history at ISU, said at the vigil.
Preliminary social media posts promoting the event —-the first of five straight days of planned events held by SJP-ISU during the group's “Week of Rage” — encouraged “peaceful activism” over the course of the week.
“It's very important to me, because as a Palestinian myself, I believe that I need to uplift the voices of those who cannot speak,” said Janna Al-Shabah, a fine arts major at Heartland Community College. Al-Shabah lives in Bloomington, but is a third-generation Palestinian.
“My grandfather fled from occupied Palestine when they were attacking, and he was about 3 years old. So this is something that, it's a part of me.”
Aside from a passerby heckling those in attendance, the peaceful vigil showed no instances of being disruptive to others. Speakers, including Al-Shabah, gave quick remarks about why the event was important to them. This was followed by quiet proceedings for the several dozen in attendance at the vigil.
“We're not antisemitic in any way, because anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. It's just anti-Zionism,” said Al-Shabah. “Anti-Zionism is literally just being against colonialism and genocide and occupation and colonization. Although antisemitism is literally just hate.”