Protesters held a rally in front of the Compton Union Building to show support for Palestine and Lebanon Monday.

Khalid Abualtin, a Palestinian American student at WSU, said they believe the university administration is well-meaning.

“I’ve spoken to the chancellor before and she’s mentioned to me that her husband is Jewish, but he’s an anti-Zionist Jew,” he said. “[The former Chancellor] is aware of the ongoing ethnic cleansing, suppression and oppression of the Palestinian people and she’s made it clear to me that she does not want to harm the Palestinian cause.”

However, the administration still needs to do more to support the Palestine cause, Abualtin said.

“They do heavily invest in companies that profit off of this genocide, and they have not followed up on our requests to divest, and to be transparent about their investments,” he said. “I don’t think WSU needs to take a strong stance, they just need to make it clear that they are anti-genocide, and they need to divest from the companies that profit off the genocide.”

In December 2023, South Africa brought a case to the International Court of Justice alleging accusations of genocide by Israel. Israel has been accused by activists and UN members of genocide for their ongoing occupation of Palestine and their alleged purposeful, negligent and indiscriminate targeting of civilian populations.

“The acts in question include killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction,” said the complaint filed by South Africa. “The acts are all attributable to Israel, which has failed to prevent genocide and is committing genocide in manifest violation of the Genocide Convention.”

In their case, South Africa cites Egypt’s representative to the 9498th meeting of the United Nations Security Council, who also voiced concerns of Israeli conduct.

“Civilian fatalities lay bare the lie that the war is against an armed group. Rather, it is a collective punishment and genocide against the Palestinian people,” Egypt’s representative said. “The extensive destruction of civilian infrastructure and the targeting of United Nations staff members [and] the forcible displacement of 85 percent of Gaza’s people, living in dire circumstances, represents an effort to eliminate the Palestinian people.”

After the rally, the group marched down to the Neill Public Library for a listening session on a new ceasefire resolution, held by city council members Carla De Lira and Eric Fejeran.

The listening session, which was not an official City of Pullman or City Council event, began at 5:15 p.m. It was also not affiliated with the groups that organized the rally and march: Pullman for Palestine or the Democratic Socialists of the Palouse.

One of the organizers, Council Member Carla De Lira, said she thought the listening session went well.

“I believe the speakers provided not only words of support for the ceasefire resolution but also provided critical feedback that Eric Fejeran and I will consider as we move this resolution forward,” De Lira said.

De Lira said she and Fejeran have a long road ahead and she is happy with the feedback she received.

“Eric and I have a lot of work to do. However, we are very grateful to be able to incorporate all this feedback into our next steps,” she said. “We are planning to closely assess the recording of the listening session, gauge the outcome of the position slips and review any annotated ceasefire resolution drafts.”

De Lira said she thought this shows how strong the Pullman community is and how this listening session should be the format for debating issues in the future.

“Any time we can foster an environment where people can openly share their different viewpoints in a respectful setting is a successful outcome for our community,” she said. “We see the clear importance of having spaces like this where we can simultaneously discuss difficult topics respectfully and still have community members connect with each other.”