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Last Monday, after consulting with medical professionals, 10 students from Occidental College launched a hunger strike and hopes that as the war in Gaza continues, the university will turn its attention to the long-standing demands of the university to link it to Israel and sell it from arms makers.
And in this new season of protest, they are working on additional demands, coccidentally calling for greater protections for international students amid the Trump administration’s drastic efforts to revoke student visas against the national interests.
The Hungry Striker says he was inspired by a student at Chapman University in Orange, who launched a similar campaign in April. The strike ended 10 days later without concessions from the university. Many California campuses have banned or restricted overnight camps last year, which appears to mark a new stage of protest tactics for students concerned about Palestinian light-making.
Occiden college students taking part in the hunger strike gather on a patio near the campus dining hall.
(Hon Wing Chiu / for the Times)
Occiden students for Justice in the Palestinian branch called on the University to sell from investments in manufacturing companies that occupied the camp for nine days last year and provided weapons and equipment to the Israeli army. In May, the Occidental councillors agreed to consider selling, and the camp fell, but the board then voted against the sale.
As of August, the total valuation of student-targeted indirect investments in companies was about $940,000, or about one-tenth of the university’s total donated assets, according to university spokesman Rachael Warecki.
In a list of requests sent to Occiden’s President Tom Striticus this week, the hunger striker has once again regained his appeal to the university to eliminate direct and indirect investments in arms-making companies with ties to Israel. They also called for greater protection for international students by providing free legal assistance to students who have been faced with visa revocation and who have escaped student records on charges of protest-related conduct. International students make up about 7% of Occidental’s student organizations.
“I have spoken with students engaged in this protest and others across campus. These concerns have been repeated over and over the past few months,” Stritics said in a message to campus Friday. “In this case, many of the initiatives students advocate are already being implemented based on the work they have done this semester for the benefit of international students and the academic community. We may not agree with all the tactics to get there, but we believe that they are basically in line with the future we want to build.”
On April 9, Stritikus issued a statement announcing the college had signed up on Amicas’ simple concerns and had registered for the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke the legal status of hundreds of international students. He said that if Occidental students lose their legal status, the university will make “all reasonable efforts” to help them maintain financial aid and housing eligibility.
He also said the campus will “continue to provide community and individual resources, training and programming.”
However, students involved in the Hunger Strike say the university is not doing enough. Friday marked the fifth day of their strike.
In daily video updates, they provide emotional denunciations of Israel’s continued airstrikes in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian deaths resulting from the seven-week-old lockdown that exhausted the area’s food quality. Israel said it wanted to cut off the intrusion of humanitarian delivery of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies into Gaza in early March, and increase pressure on Hamas to release the remaining Israeli civilians who had the group held hostage during the deadly attack in October 2023.
“The world is incredibly bad,” says Evan Zeltzer, a student at Occidental College who is taking part in the hunger strike. “And I don’t think we feel any other way to hear our voices.”
(Hon Wing Chiu / for the Times)
The Striker said he only consumes water with zero calorie electrolyte powder.
Junior Jackie Who, 20, said he was having trouble sleeping by the third day and experienced headaches, lightheads and numbness. In addition, Hu, a biochemistry major, is studying for the final exam next week.
“That’s difficult for a student, but there’s an ongoing genocide in Palestine and there’s no university left in Gaza,” she said.
Every day, strikers set up areas near the campus dining hall, with cardboard signs marking every day of strikes. By Thursday, some students had died, said Tobias Lodish, the student organizer for Palestine Justice.
That same day, Stritics stopped by to talk briefly with students, according to a video shared with The Times.
“I think you all have a different view of what you want to do for me,” he told the students. “We’ve made it clear why we don’t do this, why we don’t do it. And your hunger strike is different and has nothing to do with those requests.”
“You control over feeding yourself, so I want to do it for you,” he urged.
Evan Zelzer, a freshman, 18, has been on the strike and said the students are cold and tired, but are doing their best.
“The world’s state is very miserable,” said Zelzer, a major in critical theory and social justice. “And I don’t think we feel any other way to hear our voices.”
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