Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine

‼️EMAIL BLAST - NO BUSINESS AS USUAL‼️ After the detention of our peer Mahmoud Khalil by DHS and the multiple confirmed reports of ICE agents harassing students inside our campus and in its surroundings, we call on all to reject the university’s sentiments of continuing business as usual! We have created a couple of email templates for people to use and send out to your professors calling them to cancel class/ make classes virtual for the coming week. No student should have to choose between their education and their safety! None of us are safe until all of us are safe and this recent event has shown all that Columbia University does not care for its students and is consistently will to compromise their safety. SHARE WIDELY! https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQ86Q-DgevEIHbdP78IrqNnmM_k7fmBd_J065bSBNAHyP0CxtCZVPOplBxETmLhcaafWXPE3dXK2rd1/pub

Part 1 Al-Jazeera's documentary "What Is Hidden Is Even Greater - al-Aqsa Flood"

Newly released images and footage of the eternal martyr Yahya Sinwar on the frontlines of the Al-Aqsa Flood.

We sent over 50,000 emails to Columbia and Barnard administrators demanding they DROP THE SUSPENSIONS, DISMISS THE CHARGES. Now, they’re deciding on the fates of 22 students for the Gaza Solidarity Encampment ⛺️🇵🇸. Another 20 students will be facing hearings for the liberation of Hind’s Hall at the start of the semester. Our power will not stay in their inboxes! NYC we need your support, show up to Columbia University on January 21st @ 1PM. Students, walk out! There will be no school as usual as long as our universities fund and normalize the genocide of Palestinians. Just this month, Columbia has welcomed back US AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL, Jacob J. Lew, to its faculty where he’ll be teaching students all about how they can become ARCHITECTS OF GENOCIDE too. Columbia, your repression has only fueled us. This semester we commit to fighting for Palestine harder than ever. Gaza is our soul, our universe — we fight for amnesty, so we can escalate for Palestine. (2/2)

GAZA WILL RISE! Ceasefire today, liberation tomorrow! A ceasefire has been announced. After 465 days of genocide, Palestinians in Gaza have not only survived, but shown the world that they will continue to rise until liberation. This next long road ahead will be one of return and rebuilding, holding Zionists and war criminals to account, and continuing to drive the struggle for liberation forward. 🗓️ Thursday, January 16 📍 Times Square (43rd St & Broadway) ⏰ 6 PM

Join our mutual aid BENEFIT CONCERT AND ART MARKET on Friday!! Because the CUAD Instagram has been suspended, we’re asking folks to SHARE THIS AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE on personal accounts, club chats, club social media accounts, etc. Thank you and see you all there!🩷🇵🇸

“I have learned that a woman can be a fighter, a freedom fighter, a political activist, and that she can fall in love, and be loved, she can be married, have children, be a mother... Revolution must mean life also; every aspect of life.” - Leila Khaled

While women in Gaza are forced to give birth through C-sections without anesthesia, while women in the occupation’s prison system face sexual violence at the hands of the IOF, while women of the Global South suffer under the weight of empire, Barnard banks on those who aspire for nothing more than seats at the oppressor’s table. We reject this colonial feminist narrative wholeheartedly.

Today we rallied at Barnard, the women’s college of Columbia, to denounce their weaponization of racist imperialist feminism and instead honor the women of our resistance in Palestine & Lebanon, the women who lead our revolutionary struggle.

🚨BREAKING: BARNARD COLLEGE TO STOP-AND-FRISK PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTORS. NYC — ALL OUT FOR PALESTINE!! Barnard College is more weak and afraid than ever! It’s brutal repression tells us that we hit them where it hurts — the trustees (Francine LeFrak, Cheryl Milstein, and Diana Vagelos) are running this genocidal machine while administrators sign off on the genocide of over 200,000 Palestinians. But where they are weak, we are strong! We must find strength in the face of this brutality from the Palestinian people — we must remain committed and steadfast to Palestinian liberation. SEE YOU THERE, 2PM @ 116TH/BROADWAY MASK MANDATORY, WEAR KEFFIYEH, BRING NOISEMAKERS 🥁🥁🥁, COME WITH FRIENDS 🔥🔥🔥

THIS MONDAY, we strike Barnard for Palestine! Join us on Futter Field at 2PM for the first of many actions as we rally against Barnard College, the weak link of Columbia University. Many of the same families that fund Barnard, also fund Columbia University. On the road to divestment, Barnard will be the first domino to fall — an instrumental piece in toppling the entire university. BARNARD FIRST, COLUMBIA NEXT. WE WON’T STOP TIL YOU DIVEST! 🇵🇸🇵🇸 Barnard College relies almost entirely on these imperial feminist trustees (read: murderers) as it drowns in its own poor financial decisions, millions of dollars in debt, and an endowment significantly smaller than Columbia’s. So, we’ll make it impossible for these trustees to continue their genocidal reigns. Trustees are not untouchable, and now we know their names. Francine LeFrak, Cheryl Milstein, and Diana Vagelos: Palestine will be free. If we don’t get no justice, then you won’t get no peace. MASK MANDATORY, WEAR KEFFIYEH, BRING NOISEMAKERS, COME WITH FRIENDS!!!

Full speech given by Columbia students outside the Kraft Center at a picket, rejecting Hillel’s platforming of Barak Ravid:

Photos of the martyr, Imad Akel.

Imad Hassan Ibrahim Akel was born on June 19, 1971 in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. He came from a religious family who moved to the camp during the Nakba, but they were originally from the village of Burayr. His father worked at the Al-Shuhada mosque in the camp as a muezzin, and gave him the name Imad after the Muslim leader who defeated the Crusaders, Imad al-Din Zengi. Imad was a bright student, ranking first in his high school upon graduation. He began to participate in resistance efforts as a high school student, serving as a young leader in the First Intifada. The following year he was arrested by the occupation forces under charges of being involved with Hamas, and served a year and a half in prison. Upon release, he joined the al-Qassam Brigades, where he quickly rose through the ranks and became liaison officer of the first group of Hamas' military wing. This group, known as The Martyrs Group, carried out multiple kinds of military operations against the occupation forces, but their primary focus was eliminating suspected traitors/collaborators. In 1991, when the occupation forces caught and tortured two members of the group, gaining information on the identities of the rest, Aql became the main target of the occupation forces. Evading Israeli intelligence and capture, Akel moved from the Gaza Strip to the occupied West Bank in 1992. After settling in Jerusalem, he formed more groups for the al-Qassam Brigades in the West Bank and carried out multiple covert military operations. Eventually he made his way back to Gaza, but the occupation forces continued to pursue him. The Prime Minister of "Israel" at the time, Yitzhak Rabin, even got involved, contacting Akel’s family to bargain with them. Akel bravely responded by saying, "Rabin cannot prevent a young man who has decided to die.” He did not allow this to stop his operations against the occupation forces, and they in turn became relentless in their search for him, attacking every young man named Imad.  Akel continued his resistance efforts until his very last breath, claiming "I will remain in Palestine until I attain martyrdom and enter paradise. This is jihad, victory or martyrdom.” On November 24, 1993, he and his comrades were surrounded by 60 of the occupation's armored vehicles in the Shujaiya neighborhood. Despite being besieged, they refused to surrender, and exchanged fire with the occupation forces until their martyrdom. The memory of Imad Akel remains immortalized in the history of Palestinian resistance for his unwavering bravery and contributions to the cause.

Photos of the martyr Ibrahim al-Nabulsi as well as a video of him with his niece, Hayat.

IBRAHIM AL-NABULSI was born in Nablus in 2003, during the height of the Second Intifada. His early childhood was partially categorized by Zionist crimes in the Nablus refugee camp between 2001 and 2004, particularly Operation Defensive Shield. On the other hand, it was characterized by steadfast resistance and adaptation to grief in the streets of the West Bank. The middle of three kids in his family, Ibrahim was fiercely principled throughout his adolescence and beloved in his community. At the age of 15, al-Nabulsi turned to armed resistance. He quickly rose through the ranks, and became the commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militia associated with Fatah. He was known as "the Lion of Nablus" because of his participation in The Lions’ Den, a resistance faction emerging directly out of Nablus. The Lions’ Den is multi-factional, with members tied to Hamas, the PFLP, Fatah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The young men in the group view it as a step outside of the internal politics of these factions, and a step further into direct combat with the enemy. The Zionist entity launched multiple operations with the intent of assassinating Ibrahim, such as Operation Breaking Dawn and Operation Break the Wave. Ibrahim continued to narrowly escape them, yet he always made defiant appearances at the funerals of his comrades. Ibrahim was martyred on August 9, 2022, when he was not yet 19 years old. Israel besieged and attacked the house he was inside of, injuring 40. Although Ibrahim made it out, refusing to surrender and defended by those with arms around him, he died in the hospital within hours. The Lion of Nablus went down fighting for his people, and passed alongside his two comrades Hussein Jamal Taha (16) and Islam Sabbouh (32). The martyrdom of Ibrahim al-Nabulsi inspired a deepening commitment to resistance, which was already gaining traction by the day in the West Bank. In the months following the assassination of al-Nabulsi by the Zionist entity, The Lions’ Den claimed multiple victorious attacks on Israeli checkpoints, soldiers, and settlements, fighting with the heart of Ibrahim's memory and the goal of further mobilizing the Palestinian people to escalate resistance. His heart, his determination, and his steadfastness will eternally remain in the consciousness of the Palestinian people and their resistance.

“We’re forced to defend our people with what we have, and this is what we have. What are we supposed to do? Should we raise the white flag? That’s not going to happen. Does the world expect us to be well-behaved victims while we’re being killed? For us to be slaughtered without making a noise? That’s impossible. We decided to defend our people with whatever weapons we have.”