Boston University’s Marsh Plaza transformed into a vigil honoring the Palestinian lives lost in the Israel-Hamas War Wednesday.
The gathering included prayers, speeches and an open mic for attendees to share reflections in remembrance of Palestinian lives.
A variety of BU student organizations hosted the event including the Palestine Student Association, Muslim Student Organization, Bangladeshi Student Association, South Asian Muslim Initiative, Arab Student Organization and North African Student Organization.
In a joint Instagram post, the groups wrote the vigil served as a space to “come together to remember and honor our martyrs and renew our intentions to unrelentlessly resist the mass destruction and displacement of our people and land.”
The vice president of PSA, who asked to keep their name anonymous due to safety concerns, said in a speech that students who are active on social media are constantly exposed to videos displaying the destruction in Gaza.
“In the beginning, we were faced with frustration, anger, sadness, but now we are so disgustingly desensitized,” the vice president said “It’s your time to wake up.”
Organizers handed out flyers encouraging donations to the “Go Project Hope,” a charity operating in Northern Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp in collaboration with The Gaza Soup Kitchen.
Sophomore Cenna Sirafi, advocacy chair of the Islamic Society of BU, said the vigil gave people an opportunity to mourn the Palestinian victims.
“It’s a way to remember them, keep them in our prayers and to just have them with us on the daily,” Sirafi said.
Oren, a freshman who attended the vigil and requested to keep their last name anonymous for safety reasons, said the vigil is an important reminder of the lives lost.
“It is a genocide that we as a culture have become really desensitized to,” Oren said. “Taking the moments to acknowledge that there are people who are dying, there are people who have been killed, and there are people who are being killed right now is so incredibly important, especially to me as a Jew.”
Senior Vijay Fisch, who attended the vigil, said celebrating Yom Kippur this week reminded him of the importance of standing up to injustice. A key aspect of Yom Kippur, Fisch said, is “repairing the world” and “advocating for a better society.”
“It’s impossible to be Jewish and not mourn for tens of thousands of children and mothers and parents and doctors and aid workers who have been murdered in Gaza and in Palestine,” he said. “For me, it was a religious obligation to be here in solidarity.”
