ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Some tentative agreements have been reached between the University of Rochester administration and students protesting the war in Gaza. This comes after 15-20 students held a sit-in at Wallis Hall on Wednesday. More than a dozen other students were protesting outside the building they renamed, “Resilience Hall.”

The university said in a statement Thursday, that students inside Wallis Hall agreed to leave the building without incident, remove the encampment on Eastman Quad by Monday, and take down any signs identified as antisemitic or inflammatory. 

Organizer Omar Darwesh with Students for Justice in Palestine said, that while there have been some resolutions, the group, “unequivocally did not” agree to remove the encampment by any date. 

At this time, it’s not clear how long the encampment will be up, or if any student bans have been lifted.

Students said five protesters had been banned from campus.

Darwesh spoke of two resolutions agreed upon, on Wednesday. The first was an agreement to allow students to speak at a faculty meeting on May 7. The second was an agreement to allow students to continue to peacefully protest without punishment or academic consequences.

Darwesh said those two resolutions were granted in exchange for students leaving Wallis Hall Wednesday night, and removing any signs deemed antisemitic by the university. This included a sign that said, “Zionism will end in its totality.”

Meanwhile, the encampment at the River Campus is growing as students protest the war in Gaza. These kinds of protests have been escalating on other campuses across the country — but things remain calm at the UR.

Darwesh said the university has not agreed to academically divest in programs with ties to Israel or call for a formal cease-fire. He said the students will be sleeping in tents and protesting for however long it takes.

Darwesh added he was one of the students who was banned from campus, due to violating protocols for protesting. 

“Apparently we were using flags that had poles on them and that’s not allowed, sometimes microphones weren’t allowed, and for not moving by the time they said we had to move,” he said. “But during that time we were told to move, we were in conversations with university leadership, negotiating what we were going to do, so the basis is just highly inappropriate.”

Most of the protesters have been trying to hide their identity, calling on others to “mask up” at times.

“The two main reasons for people to cover up are, that they have installed new cameras around the university to directly be watching everything that we do, something that hasn’t been in place before,” said Darwesh. “The second, being outside agitators increasing. Especially as we increase, and we increase in the media. We have seen some people who don’t agree with us come and harass the people inside.”

So, what’s next?

According to the university, if students break up their protest camp by Monday and don’t use any signs or posters the university considers antisemitic or inflammatory, the bans on protesting students will be lifted.

There have been no counter-protests, but some students have expressed opposing viewpoints. A student told News10NBC on Wednesday, he did not believe Israel to be a terroristic state and felt uncomfortable by some of the protester’s chants.

The university statement said in part:

“Throughout this academic year, we recognized that students have a right to express themselves in accordance with our policies regarding the time, place, and manner for campus expression. Many members of our University community have shared with me that they supported the efforts of the protesting students, and many have said that we should not allow some of the activities that we’ve seen. I commend our University community for engaging thoughtfully on this issue. Our challenging goal throughout the academic year has been to protect the safety and security of our community by working to de-escalate sometimes tense situations.

Throughout the day on Wednesday, we worked diligently to find a path forward, including having conversations with protest leaders to de-escalate the situation. I want us to continue to engage with our students while also considering the impact that such events have on our greater University community. I sought to find a peaceful resolution in this challenging time and relied on key faculty and administrative leaders to assist in this effort, which ultimately resulted in a resolution based on respectful conversation and exchange of ideas.”