A vigil led by Students for Justice in Palestine at UC San Diego on April 15 opened a public space for students to grieve and make the case for an end to the continued violence and bombing occurring in Gaza and the West Bank. 

A speaker from SJP read a list of names of children less than a year old who were killed in the conflict. In total, it took over 10 minutes for the speaker to read all of the names. 

“It was a very somber event today because it’s really hard going through a list of children, babies who didn’t even make it to one, it’s really hard,” the speaker from SJP told The UCSD Guardian.

Several other student organizations also had some of their members speak, including Jewish Voices for Peace at UCSD, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanola de Aztlán, and Health Care Workers for Palestine. 

An anonymous speaker from Health Care Workers for Palestine spoke during the vigil about the psychological impacts that Palestinian children face.

“Millions of Palestinian children continue to suffer the impact of the psychosocial stressors [of] living under the brutal military occupation, as mental scars catalyze and long-term intergenerational adverse health effects ongoingly evolve,” they said.

The vigil took place just days after Iran launched drone and missile attacks against Israel on April 13. The speaker from SJP sought to clarify the true purpose of the vigil and SJP as a whole.

“We see people focusing on this Iranian war thinking that it’s good for Palestinians when in reality it couldn’t be further from the truth,” they said. “We just wanted to do this to commemorate all the lives lost and to gather our people and peers and have them continue advocating.”

Despite the subdued tone at the vigil, the speaker from SJP put their personal experience in context amidst the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Palestine.

“Look at my hopelessness in comparison to Palestinian’s hopelessness on the ground, to the people in Gaza who are facing an onslaught of bombs on a daily basis and not knowing whether or not they are going to survive the next day, having lost all of their family members having lost everyone that they’ve known, their homes,” they said. “My hopelessness in comparison to theirs is a drop in the bucket.”