SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Students and community members at Sacramento State initiated a demonstration on campus Monday in support of the Palestinian people amid the ongoing war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

By Monday afternoon, about 15 tents had sprouted up in the library quad as students donning keffiyeh scarves and face masks hung Palestinian flags and made signs calling for an end to the war and for peace for Palestinians.

Volunteers stood at tables with water bottles, face masks and snacks as music played on loudspeakers, as well as a recording of names of Palestinians who had been killed since Oct. 7 and the sounds of bombs dropping.

“We’re here to protest the genocide that’s happening in Gaza that’s been happening over the last six months,” said one protest organizer, who was afraid to give his name because he was fearful of retaliation by school officials.

Israel has reportedly killed more than 34,000 Palestinians since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200, most of whom were Israeli.

“And we’re here to protest the fact that the CSU system is invested in financial funds that have holdings in military contractors that are supplying Israel with weapons.” The protest cited Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Elbit Systems, an Israel-based military technology company.

“That’s the type of stuff that our tuition money is going toward, so we’re here to protest that and we’re here to divest.”

The Sacramento State branch of Students for Justice in Palestine sent a statement to the university Monday with a list of demands, but the students and community members protesting in the quad are from myriad different groups and aren’t all affiliated with SJP or any one club.

SJP is demanding that the university do the following: disclose all “institutional expenditures, including direct and indirect investments, stocks, bonds, hedge funds, and more,” divest from any institution or organization “that actively participate in the occupation, colonization, and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people,” defend student activism and declare “the occupation, colonization, and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, as well as the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza, illegal and indefensible.”

SJP also called on students at the other 22 Cal State University campuses to do the same. Protests in the last week have also occurred at Cal Poly Humboldt, where officials closed the campus for the remainder of the year, as well as at Sonoma State and San Francisco State. Protests have also taken place at UC Berkeley, USC and Stanford.

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