News Editor Kayla Rahaman gives an overview of the myriad of reactions and reflections that gripped the King’s community on 7 October – the mournful anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel and the escalation of the war in Gaza.
As the world has watched the extreme suffering and destruction of the past 365 days, there are many in our community for whom 7 October unfolds in a tapestry of profound grief, aching emotion, and ineffable contemplation.
Monday marked one year since Hamas launched its attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and resulting in the taking of about 250 hostages. In the war since, Al Jazeera reports that at least 41,870 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military, over half of whom were women and children. In the course of the past month, fighting has increasingly extended beyond Gaza: Within the past few weeks alone, Iran launched missiles into Israel; Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and his successors were assassinated; and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) commenced bombardments and deployed troops in southern Lebanon for the first time in nearly twenty years.
The weight of the war, made even heavier by the history that precedes October 2023, overwhelmed the King’s community on Monday. We all carried that weight — a harsh mix of contrasts, confusion, demoralisation and distress. Many of us found it inevitable that we would only discover how to handle each moment as it came.
To an extent, events held on Strand Campus helped staff and students navigate the emotional labyrinth of the day. But these initiatives too seemed to offer only suggestions of what we could say, what we could feel–what we could possibly do–to acknowledge the horrifying explosiveness of 7 October, in all that preceded and resulted from it. The very presence of so many ways to process the war mapped out new corridors that, frustratingly, led us back to our starting point from every direction.
In one second, a person’s face could say more about human cruelty than there are words for. In another, the pain rushing through a sea of voices would drown the senses. At midday, one left the sorrowful space of the Safra Lecture Theatre to an outpouring of rage. Shouts against terrorism sent the body into fear, like a familiar hunter; then slammed the realisation that the charge volleyed between protestors and counter-protestors. The legacy of a word can so completely exhaust the mind.
Detached, it might have been poetic — if only it weren’t all so real.
Vigil for Peace
Amidst the ‘multiplicity of pain, outrage, and loss‘, a Vigil For Peace was led by the Dean, Rev’d Dr Ellen Clark-King in the Safra Lecture Theatre at midday. Religious scripture readings from around the world were recited, followed by shared silences. Over a solemn cello performance, attendees were invited to light candles and place them on the stage. There was a weighty emptiness about the room, all at once insulating and haunting.
The vigil called for peace and honoured the individuals killed in Israel on 7 October, as well as the victims of war in Palestine and elsewhere. It concluded with organisers encouraging individuals of any faith to contact the Chaplains for discussion or support.
Speaking to attendees in the hall, Roar heard from one Jewish student who was disappointed by the decision to not explicitly name the victims of the 7 October attacks. She told Roar that she came to the vigil:
“To show my respects for everyone who died [on] October 7th, because it’s important to my community and there was a meeting in Hyde Park yesterday and I wasn’t able to go, so I thought going today would be good. But it wasn’t, because they didn’t even mention any of the victims, so that really sucked.”
When asked how the Vigil for Peace contributed to the environment at King’s on Monday, the Reverend Dr Ellen Clark-King told Roar:
“The Vigil for Peace provided a space for students and staff to remember and mourn those who have been killed in the conflict in Israel and Gaza and in all the many conflicts around the world. It was a reminder of our shared humanity in the midst of our many divisions.”
Pro-Palestine Walk-Out Rally
For their first demonstration of the 2024/25 academic year, an Instagram post earlier in the week called on King’s students and staff to walk out of lectures, disrupt classes and demonstrate at 12:30 pm “to demand justice, divestment, and accountability on a day that marks 1 year of genocide in a way we’ve never seen before”. The rally on Strand was one of many student demonstrations scheduled across the UK and the world on Monday to protest against governments’ and institutions’ role in the destruction of Gaza.
The air by the entrance to the King’s Building was filled with the beat of drums and familiar chants decrying the enduring hardship of Palestine and demanding freedom.
With Strand Campus packed on one end by demonstrators and onlookers, a comparably smaller counter-protest formed near the gate of the King’s Building. Carrying an Israeli flag, these demonstrators held up placards and chanted counter slogans including ‘Free Palestine from Hamas!’ and ‘Rape is not Resistance’.
Passionate shouting ensued between the protestors and counter-protestors. There was no reported violence. It was far from the first demonstration to draw detractors; of the many staged there since this time last year, however, the feeling of anger on Monday might have been one of the most striking yet.
Miles Isaacs, president of the KCL Jewish Society and one of the counter-protestors, expressed:
“This is a day for us. I very much sympathise with any loss incurred on the Palestinian side, in Gaza, in Lebanon or anywhere else in the world, but the seventh is a day for us. Full stop. It’s a day for us. It’s a day to remember our daughters and our sons and our parents and our grandparents who were killed and raped and put in ovens by terrorists in their own homes, in their own villages…this is a day for us. And to have something like this outside…the day we commemorate who we lost, who walked into our land, is inconsiderate and shows their ignorance.”
Multiple students shared Isaac’s sentiments that scheduling the rally for 7 October was inappropriate. In a statement to Roar, SJP explained their decision to hold the rally on Monday:
The walk out had to be today because for over a year, we have been told that October 7th justifies everything. Every horror and every bullet and every bomb which has been dropped. That the deaths of over 40,000 people is something defendable. That 2 million people starved is an unfortunate bi consequence. The truth is that October 7th did change everything, because it showed all of us just how little they worth Palestinian life. Your bar line should be genocide, and that is what we are seeing. And if students cannot take action now, 1 year on, then when else could we? It is too late to us. A ceasefire now, is too late for us. Condemning now, is too late for us. Divestment now, is too late for us. And yet we walked out today and we continue to fight for it, even when it is too late and especially when it is too late, because every minute that we aren’t doing all that we can is a minute that Israel can continue all that it is doing. We gather today to mourn the loss of our own KCL alumni, to honour all the lives which have been lost in Gaza, the West Bank, and now in Lebanon too.
SJP Event Cancelled
KCL SJP and Dr Rana Baker, a King’s lecturer in the History of the Middle East, claim that an event scheduled for Monday evening was “censored and cancelled” due to the “nature of the speaker and/or topic” and “offensive content”. The event would have included a talk by Dr Baker titled ‘A Year of Genocide: Reflections on Settler-Colonialism and Resistance’ and a screening of Al-Jazeera’s documentary “Gaza”.
Dr Baker’s statement was included in the same post:
I have decided to withdraw from this event due to an insulting requirement made by the College to censor it. KCL’s Freedom of Expression Standing Advisory Group (FESAG) are now requiring the presence of “observer” in the room and a full recording of my lecture on account of the “nature of the speaker and/or topic” and “offensive content.” KCL’s FESAG has clearly succumbed to pressure when, in fact, nothing is more offensive than Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Lebanon and its over 75 years of settler-colonialism.”
Further verification by Roar of the event’s cancellation is pending.
To learn more about how the Israel-Hamas war has impacted the King’s community over the past year, click here.
