At First Major Rally of the Semester, HOOP Protests Israeli Tanks in West Bank

More than 40 Harvard affiliates gathered Monday afternoon to protest Israel’s deployment of tanks into the West Bank last week, marking the first sizable pro-Palestine student rally of the semester.

The protest — hosted by Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, an unrecognized group of pro-Palestine organizations — began outside the Science Center Plaza. But halfway through the rally, the group relocated to outside University Hall after a small group of counterprotesters began blasting music from loudspeakers just steps away on the plaza.

Kojo Acheampong ’26, a pro-Palestine organizer and co-founder of the African and African American Resistance Organization, spoke about how the “Trump era” will affect the Israel-Hamas War as “The Star-Spangled Banner” played in the background.

“He wants to annex Gaza,” Acheampong said, alternating between a microphone and megaphone to talk over the music. “Will we let that happen? No.”

“What the heck is happening under this administration?” Acheampong added.

HOOP organizer and AFRO co-founder Prince A. Williams ’25 referenced the Trump administration’s threatened cuts to welfare programs in his speech.

“The same billionaire agenda that is attacking all of us here at home is the same imperialist agenda that is happening in Palestine,” said Williams, a Crimson Editorial editor.

“We are going to continue to put Palestine at the front of our movement,” he added.

During the speeches, the counterprotesters — at least three of whom were holding Israeli flags — congregated around the three speakers, which played the U.S. national anthem and “Give Peace a Chance,” an anti-war John Lennon song. While HOOP organizers did not initially move from their gathering spot, after continued interruptions that drowned out the speeches and chants, Achmeampong led the demonstrators into Harvard Yard.

At Thayer Gate, a Harvard Securitas guard checked the IDs of everyone entering the Yard — a change from early afternoon, when the Yard gates were still open to the public. Gates to the Yard were reopened to the public later in the evening.

A Harvard spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this article.

A guard checks student IDs outside of the Science Center gate of Harvard Yard. The Yard remained closed for several hours after the pro-Palestine protest. By Ike J. Park

Harvard closing the Yard during student protests is not unusual. Last spring, Harvard restricted access to the Yard in anticipation of student protests, and throughout HOOP’s 20-day encampment that semester, Securitas guards routinely limited entry to HUID holders.

Organizers led the protesters in chants — including “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “one, two, three, four, occupation no more; five, six, seven, eight, Israel is an apartheid state” — as they walked through the Yard and recongregated around the John Harvard statue.

Though the counterprotesters followed the pro-Palestine protesters into the Yard, they did not bring the loudspeakers along with them.

Once settled in front of University Hall, the protesters resumed their speeches without disruptions.

While past semesters have seen surges of student demonstrations — including rallies with hundreds of attendees, the Yard encampment last spring, and library study-ins in the fall — pro-Palestine organizing this semester has largely subsided.

Although Monday’s rally is the second HOOP has hosted this semester, it is the first that attracted more than a handful of attendees. On Feb. 12, HOOP organizers planned a rally to call on Harvard to institute Palestine studies, but only around five people showed up, and there were no speeches or chants.

“Harvard was always complicit in this genocide,” HOOP organizers wrote in a Sunday Instagram post publicizing Monday’s rally, which was co-posted by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Commitee and Harvard Graduate Students 4 Palestine.

“As it adopts the IHRA definition and re-invests $150 million into Bookings Holdings, a company with material ties to illegal Israeli settlements, our calls for divestment must grow stronger,” organizers wrote.

Access to the Yard remained restricted to HUID holders immediately after the rally and until the evening. Several Harvard University police officers stood on the Science Center plaza before the rally began and followed the protesters from the Science Center Plaza into the Yard.

—Staff writer Samuel A. Church can be reached at samuel.church@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @samuelachurch.

—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.