Strikes, Building Occupations, Blockades and Direct Actions Continue to Spread in Solidarity with Palestine

While reports on student led protests have largely left the news cycle, new encampments, both on and off campus, the taking over of buildings, mass protests, organized blockades, and targeted direct actions – all in solidarity with Palestine as the state of Israel continues its murderous assault in Rafah – have only continued to spread.

On university campuses, actions in solidarity with Palestine have remained ongoing, against the backdrop of a massive strike across the University of California system by members of the United Auto Workers (UAW), in response to the ongoing brutal police crackdown of student protests.

On several UC campuses, tens of thousands of educational workers took to picket lines, while student protesters responded by setting up barricades and a solidarity encampment at UC Santa Cruz and at UC Santa Barbara, strike supporters took over a dining hall and opened it up for free to the wider public. In the face of threats of a wider wildcat strike by UAW members across the University of California system, a judge has moved to enforce an restraining order against the strikers, in an attempt to kill a possible solidarity strike wave.

Beyond the strike by UAW members in California, over the past several weeks, solidarity demonstrations, actions, and the occupation of buildings have continued to pop off at CUNY in New York, UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, FIT in New York, Bard College, the University of Pennsylvania, FIU in Florida, UCLA in Los Angeles, and at Stanford in Palo Alto, CA.

In May in Berkeley, California, people took over a vacant building owned by the University of California, a key driver of gentrification in the area and the entity currently attempting to demolish People’s Park, a plot of autonomously managed land that was taken over by the community in the 1960s, leading to a wave of riots and bloody clashes with the National Guard. A communique released online stated:

We have heard the call to escalate from the Palestinian resistance and our Palestinian brothers and sisters, and we answered. On May 15, 2024, inspired by the resilience of the Palestinian people, students and community members in Berkeley, California liberated a building in solidarity with Palestinians. The following statement details the significance and intention of the action.
This action represented a significant escalation in the current wave of Bay Area demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine. This day falls on the 76th anniversary of the Nakba and the 55th anniversary of bloody Thursday in which Alameda County Sheriff deputies opened fired on protestors with shotguns, severely injuring, blinding & killing protestors.

As Israeli tanks push deeper into Rafah during this US-funded genocide, there are glaring parallels between the violent and extractive tactics deployed overseas and those deployed on this stolen land. The police are an occupying army of the so-called United States, just as the IOF are an occupying army in so- called Israel.

We know that the university is not just “complicit❞ in genocide and colonial warfare, but that it manufactures and profits from it by developing the technologies, supplying the workers, and stealing the land. UC Berkeley is an investor in and perpetrator of brutal occupation, from People’s Park to Palestine. The UC system invests over $2 billion in funds responsible for the unfolding genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine, and over $30 million for police and fencing on People’s Park.

While Berkeley displaces Black and Brown working class communities outside the premises of its campus, it criminalizes the very people whose lands and homes it has stolen. It is through militarized police forces that UC Berkeley continues to profit from imperial conquests, while vilifying those community protestors who stand up against the genocide of Palestinians. The community gathered with the protestors on the first night to bring supplies such as books, toiletries, food, water, and medical supplies in the spirit of building a community movement to end occupation from People’s Park to Palestine.

In June, as many students were taking their finals, another round of actions and occupations at California campuses also kicked off. In Santa Cruz, California, “Folks at UCSC took an empty chancellor house building on campus.” At UC Santa Barbara, an autonomous group “took Girvetz Hall…” At UC Davis, barricades were erected and at UCLA, an encampment was again launched in solidarity with Palestine, and once again faced down violent riot police and arrests. 

In Mexico City, violent clashes broke out when demonstrators rioted outside of the Israeli embassy, fighting with police and breaking down barricades.

Meanwhile in so-called Canada, students in Toronto continued their protest encampment while in Montreal, another protest encampment continues after riot police attacked demonstrators with tear-gas at McGill university following the occupation of an administration building. From Clash MTL on Mastodon:

The seriousness of the clashes on the campus of McGill University on June 6th has taken some time to fully come into view. Students repeatedly held the line at barricades against riot police charging, swinging batons, pepper-spraying and firing tear gas. One barricade made up of shelving units survived a direct riot police charge for close to 5 minutes due to protesters pushing back. Many protesters were unaffected by pepper spray thanks to adequate eye protection and umbrellas, while many others were treated with Maalox and able to return to the fray. A protester repeatedly punched a riot cop in the face. Many protesters were injured by baton blows and riot police charges. Groups of protesters used the multiple entrances to campus to frustrate police attempts to clear the area. Anything that could be used as a projectile was picked up and launched at the police, though good options like rocks were hard to come by.

We are certainly missing things, but it is clear that the battle was more extensive and prolonged than anything witnessed in this city since 2012. While some riots since then were more materially destructive, protesters on June 6th targeted the police because they were oriented towards a tactical goal: maintaining the occupation of the James Admin building and preventing the arrest of their comrades. Sometimes a tactical defeat — the building occupiers were indeed arrested, all charged with breaking and entering — is a strategic success. Definitively breaking with pacifism, proving that we can hold the line and take care of one another when it really matters, the joy of the unmediated attack on state forces; the value of these experiences that hundreds of young militants will carry forward is immeasurable.

On June 8th in Montreal, anarchists led a breakaway demo from a larger Palestine march, entering McGill campus and tagging the gravestone of the university’s slaveholding colonist founder. Later, the demo headed downtown towards F1 Grand Prix festivities, where it faced off with riot cops. Earlier in the main demo, a Starbucks had a window broken and red paint added to the entrance.

Ultimately, riot police were able to violently evict the group of protesters who were occupying the administration building, as hundreds of supporters showed up to stand in solidarity with the occupation and face off against police.

Back in the US, large protests have taken place in various cities, including a blockade of the Port of Houston, outside of Elbit systems in Boston, and a mass protest of tens of thousands who rallied in front of the White House. As one report wrote about the demonstration in DC:

The huge “We are your red line” protest in DC got off to a strong start as cops attempted to arrest someone, only to be defeated by determined opposition and a successful un-arrest. Cops fired pepper spray into the crowd…but were not successful in holding on to their hostage. Instead, the cops withdrew…in defeat and humiliation.

Public encampments off campus have sprung up in Los Angeles, Chicago, and in front of a federal building in San Francisco – only to be quickly broken up by police. In San Francisco, riot police used projectile weapons to break up the encampment and disperse demonstrators.

Targeted actions of sabotage have also escalated against university officials responsible for the ongoing police crackdown, campus police (and their vehicles) which have brutalized students, campuses involved in funding genocide, multiple US military recruitment offices, banks and corporations tied to the state of Israel, and tech and arms manufacturers helping to supply weapons and beyond. In Oakland, California a federal building was also vandalized in solidarity with the protest encampment in San Francisco that was violently dispersed by police.

In Niles, Illinois, the Woodward Arms Manufacturing factory was targeted. According to Palestine Action US on Instagram:

In the early hours of the morning on June 7th, actionists redecorated the Woodward Arms Manufacturing factory in Niles, Illinois. “FREE GAZA” was painted underneath the glowing Woodward sign, red paint was thrown on the building, windows, and launched at the letters of the sign. Front windows of the office building were covered in glass etching cream causing permanent & irreversible damage to the glass.

Woodward is a multi-billion dollar global company that designs and manufactures products for military weapons and vehicles, aerospace, oil, gas and power distribution, and more. The tactical missiles and precision guided weaponry designed by Woodward have been utilized by the IOF in its genocide against Palestine, responsible for murdering thousands.

In Tucson, Arizona, the headquarters of Caterpillar was also vandalized. Again, according to Palestine Action US:

Late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, anonymous vandals smashed out at least five windows of the Caterpillar headquarters in Tucson, Arizona. They painted “murderers” on a remaining window in red spray paint. The attack occurred as Palestinians and those standing in solidarity with them commemorate Nakba Day, the yearly commemoration of the 1948 war that resulted in the permanent displacement of a majority of Palestinians.

Caterpillar construction equipment, often with modifications, is used heavily by the Israeli military in their occupation of Palestine, including in the ongoing ground invasion of Gaza. Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozers have repeatedly been used by the Israel Defense Forces to bulldoze Palestinian homes, drag and crush Palestinians, and destroy cultural heritage sites.

On March 16, 2003, American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah by a Caterpillar bulldozer driven by an Israeli soldier. Caterpillar continues to sell the machines to the Israeli military despite calls from humanitarian groups to stop doing so. Rafah is currently the main focus of IDF attacks.

The attack on the Caterpillar building follows more than two weeks of protests by students and community members at the University of Arizona. On Tuesday, April 30, and Thursday May 9, hundreds gathered in solidarity with Gaza and staged encampments amidst the olive groves on the west end of campus.

The brutal police repression directed at the growing struggles against the war and genocide in Palestine are a direct attempt at stifling the spread of direct action and mass refusal currently spilling out of universities and onto the streets of cities and towns across the world. Just as under Trump during the George Floyd uprising in 2020, the Biden administration is hoping to mobilize the extensive militarized police apparatus, along with the court system, and the corporate media, which is attempting to label pro-Palestinian demonstrators as “anti-Semitic,” against the emerging movement in an effort to crush it before it can spread to more sectors.