We have always found ways to keep traces of ourselves, our history, and struggle. Photography has been one way. We come from a tradition of sumoud [steadfastness] in the face of erasure. And the camera contributes tremendously to why we have a concrete record of, both, the joy and suffering Palestinians have endured — the sumoud — for decades. The camera allows us to bear witness.
I am not a photographer. I was gifted a film camera, that now has a life of its own. It has become a pair of eyes — my eyes.
The images selected for this photo essay reflect a movement that institutions and power structures refused to recognize. On April 25, students at the University of Pennsylvania and a coalition of students and faculty from Drexel University and Temple University established the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. At the encampment, which lasted 16 days, students erected a tent to house the community library named after Refaat Alareer who Israeli Occupation Forces killed on Dec. 6, 2023. The Refaat Alareer library became a space for teach-ins, music, quiet readings, and camp discussions. The Ben Franklin statue on campus — Abu Benny, as he came to be known — became an interstice for resistance and a symbol in a larger territorial game between students and administration. Students would drape the statue in keffiyehs and hang signs in the day, police would take them down and build a barricade around it at night. Through a practice of radical joy and encouragement, the encampment birthed journalists, photographers, drummers, artists, vocalists, writers, scientists, and most importantly, teachers out of the students.
The images in this photo essay serve as indexes of the biopolitical struggles and injustices that the University of Pennsylvania both hosted and became a proxy for. On May 10, when Mayor Cherelle Parker and the university’s interim president, Larry Jameson, agreed to send hundreds of Philadelphia police officers to sweep the encampment, I was one of the many students brutally arrested that morning. I did not have my camera on me, and even if I did, I would not have been able to take photos. In my stead, a comrade bore witness. When my eyes failed to capture the moment there was another pair ready to document history too (see photos 19-22). By documenting, exposing, and bearing witness to the human consequences of power dynamics, social inequalities, and systemic violence in the context of Palestine — our collective resistance within this student intifada — and preserving these experiences, we foster agency for ourselves and others. In producing and sharing photographs like these, we contribute to an intergenerational collective memory, ensuring that we will never forget.
Photographers: Nada Abuasi and Anas Rabah
Philadelphia students and community members rally at Drexel University on April 25, 2024, calling on students and faculty to take a stand against the university's complicity. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
Philadelphia students and community members march from Drexel University to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), on April 25, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
Philadelphia faculty and community members lock arms around students as they set up the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on UPenn’s campus on April 25, 2024 (Photo: Nada Abuasi).
Ben Franklin is renamed “Abu Benny,” dressed with the revolutionary Keffiyeh, for the very first time, on April 25, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
The Gaza Solidarity Encampment is officially set up on College Green, with just 10 tents on April 25, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
Students hang one of many banners on College Green: “UPenn, Stop Engineering Genocide!” on April 25, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
The Philadelphia Gaza Solidarity Encampment makes its message loud and clear on April 28, 2024: “Disclose, Divest!” (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
Community members read donated political literature from the Refaat Al-Areer Memorial Library on April 30, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
Students bang on drums while others chant near Zionist counter-protesters on April 30, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
The Gaza Solidarity Camp is officially renamed “The Freedom Camp” on May 1, 2024, International Worker’s Solidarity Day. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
Despite the encampment’s presence, UPenn Graduates visit College Green to take graduation photos in front of “Abu Benny,” on May 1, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
Students rally and chant synchronously near Zionist agitators and Penn’s Hay Day participants on May 2, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
A student smiles heartwarmingly, holding a therapy bunny, while others enjoy the embrace of community and homemade Maklouba on May 3, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
The Mariposas Galactitcas Band visits The Freedom Camp’s Refaat Al-Areer Memorial Library to perform revolutionary songs, shielding from the rain, on May 4, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi).
Students, faculty, and community members rally to protest the Israeli attack on Rafah and to reiterate their demands (Disclose, Divest, and Defend) on May 5, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
Student protesters hold hands and skip up Woodland Walk as they chant in Arabic, “Raise, Raise, Raise, Raise! Raise the revolution’s flag!” on May 5, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
Student bangs an empty, decorated five-gallon jug, while protesters chant, “Disclose, Divest, we will not stop, we will not rest!” on May 6, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
A large crowd gathers in support of The Freedom Camp chants and waves Palestinian flags, just as Marc Lamont Hill is about to speak, on May 6, 2024, (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
The Philadelphia Police Department’s Strike Force waits in droves to arrest student protesters and dismantle The Freedom Camp on May 10, 2024 (Photo: Anas Rabah)
PPD officers pace around, ready to remove the Freedom Camp on May 10, 2024. (Photo: Anas Rabah)
PPD officers grow antsy in their riot gear and with their wooden batons on May 10, 2024. (Photo: Anas Rabah)
Amid student arrests, Penn faculty and staff lock arms in solidarity with their students shortly before being brutalized and unofficially detained on May 10, 2024. (Photo: Anas Rabah)
Patches on College Green remain after UPenn employed Penn Police and facility workers to plunge the encampment into a compactor on May 10, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
UPenn locks down and barricades the entire area surrounding College Green and hangs up Notices of Trespass, while cops continue to patrol on May 10, 2024. (Photo: Nada Abuasi)
