Pro-Palestinian encampment grows at UBC

An encampment at UBC in solidarity with Palestinians has grown in the days since it was first set up, with the number of tents nearly doubling in just three days.

Protesters say they’ll stay put until the university meets their demands.

The encampment has become a little community, with scheduled prayer times, workshops, hot meals delivered daily, a supplies tent, and even a medic zone.

“There’s a community of families who are giving us home-cooked meals everyday. But also there are people here to learn, we do have some teachers from faculty here throughout the day, and also to engage with the community,” said Sam, an organizer of the encampment.

The encampment was set up early Monday. Representatives there say they are calling on the university to “divest from Israel’s settler colonial occupation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of Palestinians, and to participate in global academic boycotts of Israeli universities.”

“This university, UBC, has $66 million bound up in the Israeli occupation and is funding the genocide,” said one protester, who identified as “Buddy.”

“And so the students don’t want their tuition going towards that.”

Community agreements were being handed out to those in attendance, outlining a number of points.

The encampment is similar to others that have popped up at university campuses across Canada and the U.S. David Tindall, a sociology professor at UBC, says movements of student protests across university campuses are nothing new.

“For a lot of social movements, university campuses are a really important incubator for things that are going on,” explained Tindall.

“Certainly we saw things very similar to this in the late 1960s — there was a lot of protests over various issues, but in particular the Vietnam war and free speech.”

While other protest efforts at universities have been successful in the past, he is unsure if the encampment at UBC will have any effect on the ongoing war in Gaza — where more than 34,000 people have been killed since the deadly Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, which killed 1,200.

“It’s hard for me to see how divestments would make that much of a difference. I’m also somewhat doubtful that the university would accept all the demands. For example, one of the demands is to cut off all ties with Israeli universities — I’d be surprised if the university did that because that seems kind of like a violation of academic freedom,” said Tindall.

Organizers say, aside from a few agitators, it has mostly been peaceful on-site. While campus police have not yet stepped in, UBC issued a release Wednesday saying there are some concerning actions on the field, such as removal of university property, damage to the turf field, and possible theft of a Canadian flag from a UBC flagpole.

“There is also concern that the site is barring members of the university community from enjoying the site,” the release said.

“All of these actions are counter to UBC policies. The university also is aware that several participants at the protest are not UBC community members.”

Sam responded to some of the claims.

“All of the barricade material have been donated by folks externally, from my understanding, nothing’s been stolen,” Sam said.

This protest follows a wave of similar rallies and encampments at universities across North America, including at McGill University in Montreal, protesting Israel’s offensive in Gaza. As well, the University of Victoria announced Thursday that a demonstration on its quad is now an encampment.

Though the situation at UBC has been mostly peaceful, things are vastly different at other solidarity encampments.

On Thursday, police in Los Angeles removed barricades and began dismantling pro-Palestinian demonstrators’ fortified encampment at the University of California, after hundreds of protesters defied orders to leave, some of them forming human chains as police fired flash-bangs to break up the crowds. Some people were detained, their hands bound with zip ties.

The action came after officers spent hours threatening arrests over loudspeakers if people did not disperse. A crowd of more than 1,000 had gathered on campus, both inside a barricaded tent encampment and outside it, in support. Protesters and police shoved and scuffled as officers encountered resistance. Video showed police pulling off helmets and goggles worn by some protesters as they were being detained.

-With files from The Associated Press and The Canadian Press.