Outside the Clarendon Theatre on the 28th of October at 8AM, members of Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P) began reading out the names of all known Palestinians who have died in the Israel-Gaza conflict. OA4P plan to continue reading names from 8am to 8pm for 4 days until the 31st of October.
A member of OA4P at the vigil told The Oxford Blue that the University had initially threatened to remove the banners from the building. Later, the member reported, University security guards came periodically and demanded that people show their Bodleian Library cards. The University reportedly stopped disturbing the protestors after they moved slightly to the right – meaning that the vigil was no longer wholly obstructing the steps of the Clarendon Building.
The words of Refaat Alareer’s last poem (before he was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Northern Gaza) were written on the ground: “If I must die, let it be a tale”. OA4P chose to feature his work at the vigil because they told The Blue he used his voice to call for the “right to existence of Southern Palestinians”. Protestors encouraged students to reflect on the fact that each person whose name was read out was a person with a “family, home and dreams and desires”. They noted that tragically many more people had died whose names are not known. Based on an article from The Lancet, OA4P claim that the death toll in Gaza is close to 200,000, though they will read the names of 34,344 who OA4P say have been killed by “zionist forces” (not including those who have died from starvation).