Organised by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee, students gathered to honour victims of recent IDF raid including leading Hamas figure
March 20, 2024 16:29
ByEliana Jordan, Eliana Jordan
Students at Harvard University held a wake and memorial on Tuesday to honour “martyrs” killed during the IDF’s Monday night raid on Al-Shifa hospital.
Durin the Israeli operation IDF forces killed senior Hamas commander Faiq Mabhouh and
The Palestine Solidarity Committee at Harvard posted an invitation to a “Community Wake for Al-Shifa Hospital” on Monday, writing in the caption: “Last night, IOF STORMED Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s last medical complex. Over 30,000 Palestinians including wounded patients and forcibly displaced people are TRAPPED inside. Al Jazeera has reported that their correspondent and team of journalists have been detained at the site with multiple Palestinians being MARTYRED overnight.”
The post invited students to "mourn the martyrs and ongoing genocide that Harvard is complicit in.”
On Tuesday the group posted a video of the event, which showed dozens of students holding Palestinian flags while reciting in unison a statement condemning the IDF’s raid on Al-Shifa.
“Today, we come together as a community to mourn the martyrs at Al-Shifa hospital and the over 31,000 Palestinians killed in over 160 days of genocide,” the attendees read. “We are assembling here as Harvard students and community members to bring accountability to Harvard’s moral and material complicity in colonial violence, apartheid, and ongoing genocide.”
According to the Harvard Crimson, the university newspaper, over 80 students attended the vigil at the Smith Campus Center, which was jointly organised by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, Harvard African and African American Resistance Organisation, Harvard Jews for Palestine, Graduate Students 4 Palestine, Law Students for a Free Palestine and Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine.
One speaker, cited by the Harvard Crimson, said at the event: “The attack on Al-Shifa — like an attack on any hospital — is the clearest case of a crime against humanity. You don’t have to be a student of public health or a medical student to know that.”
Another speaker said: “Each of these Palestinian martyrs were parents, children, and loved ones. They were healthcare workers who dedicated their lives to healing others, patients who are fighting for survival, and displaced families looking for shelter.”
Israel officials said the raid on Al-Shifa was based on “intelligence information indicating the use of the hospital by senior Hamas terrorists to command attacks,” and reported having killed 20 Hamas militants there, including Mabhouh.
According to the military, Mabhouh was hiding in a compound at Al-Shifa “from which he operated and advanced terrorist activity.” Palestinian sources said he had been tasked by Hamas to guard food trucks bringing supplies to the northern parts of the Strip.