On Monday, Oct. 7, about 40 demonstrators gathered outside The New School University Center after a 2 p.m. walkout, marking a year of Israel’s escalating violence in Palestine after Hamas’ attack last October. 

New School demonstrators shouted, “While you’re learning, Gaza’s burning!” among other chants, while picketing on campus. After about 30 minutes, the group moved to Washington Square Park to join hundreds of other demonstrators at Within Our Lifetime’s (WOL) citywide “Flood New York for Palestine” march around 3 p.m.

“It’s important to be out here because it’s been a year, and the occupation has not ended, and a genocide is still happening in Palestine,” an anonymous New School student said, who skipped class to attend the march. 

An Instagram post on The New School’s Students for Justice for Palestine (TNS-SJP) account in partnership with other university-affiliated SJP’s and the National SJP, read “No School As Usual During Genocide.” In it, they demanded that their academic institutions “disclose and divest from all companies aiding Israel in genocide, cut all ties with Zionist institutions,” prohibit NYPD officers from campuses, “protect pro-Palestinian speech on campus,” and offer “amnesty for all students punished for their rightful activism.” 

Once reaching Washington Square Park, the group was met with around 20 counter-demonstrators holding Israeli flags and singing, as well as a large police presence. The police stood between the two groups of demonstrators while multiple minor confrontations between the two occurred. 

 During the gathering in the park, speakers from local universities’ social justice and SJP groups, including NYU, CUNY, and Pace, addressed the crowd.  

Around 3:40 p.m., the crowd left Washington Square Park and headed to Union Square. There, the number of demonstrators soon reached thousands. 

As the crowd grew, demonstrators continued to lead chants. At one point, a group gathered around a makeshift pig head wearing an NYPD cap, which appeared to be made out of cardboard and placed on a stick. Protestors set the figure aflame, along with an orange traffic cone, which burned for several minutes before subsiding. 

An anonymous New School student present, who identified themselves as being in support of SJP, said that they wanted The New School to divest from 14 companies the university is currently invested in that are contributing to weapons manufacturing abroad. 

They also stated that the university should “protect student demonstrators and protestors” and “not use punitive punishment against students who stand up for social justice and human rights causes.” 

Several New School demonstrators remained part of the march as it moved north around 4:30 p.m., passing through Grand Central and Penn Station, ending in Madison Square Park.

New York Police Department (NYPD) bureaus and units were present, including Legal Matters, Community Affairs, and Technical Assistance Response, as well as uniformed officers holding riot gear. As demonstrators marched, they were led by NYPD motorcycles and other officers, including yellow-vested officers on bikes and those from the Strategic Response Group.

Multiple altercations and arrests occurred throughout the march. As the group was passing the New York Public Library flagship building, an older woman was ziptied and apprehended by officers. The woman expressed she was “in pain” due to the restraints, while other demonstrators chanted “Let her go!” She was placed in an NYPD van shortly after. 

As demonstrators gathered in Madison Square Park toward the end of the march, Cofounder and Chair of WOL Nardeen Kiswani led chants as marchers shined their phone flashlights, waved Palestinian flags, and set off red smoke flares in support. 

The march was supposed to reach Times Square and Columbus Circle but was redirected south. Kiswani explained the changed route, citing multiple threatening messages received via X, directed at her, as the reason they did not reach either destination.

Later, after multiple speeches and organized prayer in Madison Square Park, Kiswani addressed the crowd again, stating that although she knew the group “had energy” and “didn’t want it to end here,” it was necessary to disperse due to the presence of the NYPD Strategic Response Group surrounding the park. By 7:20 p.m., demonstrators began leaving the scene. 

“It’s important to be out here because historically, we’ve seen that when people march in the streets and pressure their governments, their governments budge and move and change,” an anonymous New School student said. “People won’t stop in the streets until we see more government action to actually withhold arms and funds from Israel.”