A crowd of over 300 people filled the Quarry parking lot, facing a makeshift stage of wooden pallets in front of the UC Santa Cruz Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
Around 5 p.m., a board member of UCSC Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) got up on the stage and addressed the crowd at the “All Eyes on Rafah Rally” on May 8. The crowd pressed against the barricade, listening to the microphone carry the speaker’s words.
“I just want to take a minute to remind everyone why we’re here: for the people of Palestine, the people of Gaza, and especially the 1.5 million innocent Palestinians who are trapped in Rafah right now — they are facing the final stages of Israel’s genocide,” an organizer said. “End the silence, end the genocide, divest now, free Palestine.”
Rafah is a Palestinian city in the southern Gaza Strip that borders Egypt. The Rafah Border Crossing is the only remaining crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip and the only crossing not controlled by Israel.
The Israeli government has described Rafah as “one of the last strongholds of Hamas,” insisting the army must invade if they want to dismantle Hamas and return the hostages that were captured in the Oct. 7 attack.
Around 450,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah since Israel’s initial invasion on May 7. Over 1.4 million Palestinians, around half of Gaza’s population, had been sheltering in Rafah. The current evacuations force people to go back north, where many areas are dealing with the catastrophic impacts of previous Israeli attacks.
After their initial speech, the SJP board member announced that the encampment had a special guest coming to perform at the rally: Redveil, a rap artist and vocal pro-Palestinian activist.
Redveil had been set to perform later that week at Slug Life Production Board’s 2024 “Edge of Eden” event. However, the day before the rally, SLPB announced the event’s cancellation, citing safety concerns for students and employees.
On the makeshift stage, Redveil read aloud the encampment’s demands and gave a speech on the importance of student activism.
“The entire world is looking at you all right now,” Redveil said.”They’re looking at you as an example of people that are unflinching about what you believe.”
Redveil stated that his “Edge of Eden” contract included a clause barring him from mentioning political speech during his performance. In response, he and his team said political speech was non-negotiable and that without that freedom he would not perform, prompting the school to remove the clause.
Redveil intended to make Palestine a focal point of his “Edge of Eden” show and planned to donate all of his proceeds directly to families in Gaza. In light of the event being canceled, he told the crowd he was going to donate what he would have made to those families instead.
In an interview with City on a Hill Press, Redveil said that participating in the movement and witnessing the crowd’s energy was “historic.” He urged people not to forget what being part of the encampment feels like —“a real community.”
“I feel like [these encampments] peek into what a postcolonial future could look like,” Redveil said to CHP. “The only way [real community] will happen again is through very intentional organizing and fighting.”
To uplift the attendees and organizers throughout the performance, members of SJP made speeches to ground the audience and themselves in the importance of keeping “All Eyes on Rafah.”
“The other night, Rafah’s borders closed,” an SJP speaker said. “We have to be here united, willing to act in any way necessary, and [use] our power as the petit-bourgeois UCSC students all the way here in Northern California to stand up for what we know is right.”
Additional reporting by Colleen Barrett, Keith Gelderloos, and Eva Stuewe.
