Students held a list of the names of children who were killed in the Israel-Hamas war in Thompson Library Friday. Credit: Christian Harsa | Senior Reporter
Posters and protests around Ohio State’s campus urging for a ceasefire this week culminated in an art installation on the Oval and a four-story list of names dropped in Thompson Library on Friday.
Students who lead the Palestinian Liberation Movement, a Columbus-based group working to “combat the systemic oppression of Palestinians,” according to its Instagram, placed 2,000 red-painted stakes in the shape of Gaza, each representing three children who have been killed since the start of the Israel-Hamas war Oct. 7, on the Oval Thursday night.
The following morning, the students took to social media, speaking out against the university for removing the installation, which was meant to visually represent the number of lives lost, according to co-founder of the Palestinian Liberation Movement, Abdul-Azeez Ahmad, a third-year in landscape architecture.
Ohio State facilities removed the installation by hand in addition to the sign in front of it that read, “6,405+ children have been murdered in Gaza with your tax dollars” as staking in the Oval without approval is not allowed to protect the sprinkler system and other utilities running underground, university spokesperson Ben Johnson said.
Hours later, students suspended a handwritten list of at least 4,000 names of those killed from the atrium in Thompson Library. The list stretched from the fourth floor and across the steps, cutting through the silence as students read the names aloud, one by one.
Mohammad Ghassan, a third-year in biology and event coordinator with Students for Justice in Palestine, said the list was an attempt to show people how many children died in support of a ceasefire.
“Eleven thousand people are dead. The number is still rising. This list goes from the top, from the fourth floor, out into the middle of the Oval,” Ghassan said. “And that’s just the children. And that is not even complete with all the children that have just died within the past hour.”
Jineen Musa, a second-year in health information management and Students for Justice in Palestine outreach director, said the list of names held in Thompson took three weeks to create and is not exhaustive to the current death toll. At the time of publication, the Associated Press reported at least 11,470 Palestinian deaths and 1,400 Israeli deaths.
“We need time to mourn. We need this space to mourn,” Musa said. “That’s exactly what we’re doing with this. We want to bring awareness to exactly what is happening in Palestine right now and the lives that are being lost.”
Ahmad said the art installation shared a similar goal.
“We just wanted to spread awareness and show the gravity of the situation because when people hear numbers, when they hear figures, there isn’t as much gravity associated with the numbers,” Ahmad said. “When they see all these stakes, they see that, ‘Wow, one of these stakes represents three children killed.’”
Christian Harsa contributed to this reporting.
Video from LanternTV reporter Gia An Thach.
