Mud swamps over grass where disintegrating cardboard and puddled tarp trace a crude footpath; wooden pallets provide the only solid ground. Upon this foundation lies Oxford’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment, a community supported by donations where students learn from teach-in lectures and look after one another. As a Cherwell journalist embedded in the camp for the first night, I didn’t scrounge for polished statements but documented the mundane details of life in the “Liberated Zone.” Here’s what I observed.
Masks On
Sprung up during the pre-dawn hours of 6 May, the welcome tent stood at the encampment entrance where newcomers filled out an onboarding form asking for their first name or pseudonym only – no full names. Responses are kept encrypted and private, it said, and a legal team is advising their collective action.
Many picked up face masks for anonymity, while some students also donned sunglasses and scarves. Some students didn’t bring their Bod cards in fear of confiscation. Tape covered up the initials and college crests embroidered on Oxford’s signature puffer jackets. All communications occurred on Signal and Telegram – two platforms chosen for their security.
A prospective camper raised his concern about losing his work visa, and a volunteer informed him that the encampment was setting up protocols to sort people into groups by levels of risk to stay or leave in case of a situation involving the police.
A Learning Environment
Prominent scholars visited the encampment: feminist philosopher Amia Srinivasan brought students lunch and Israeli-British historian Avi Shlaim gifted students a box of dates. Daily schedules are filled with teach-in lectures, poetry circles, and news announcements. Scheduled chants were interspersed with spontaneous cheers whenever a car honked its horn in support as it drove by.
Books were stashed around the camp and readers nestled in every corner. Some were doing coursework, the flutter of their pages accompanied by shuffles of flashcards. A volunteer left after dark for a midnight hospital shift; others trickled in and out throughout the day to attend lectures. Even the encampment couldn’t keep Oxford’s academic demands at bay.
Dr Refaat Al-Areer Memorial Library, a tent named after a Palestinian writer killed by Israeli airstrike, held a waterproof bag filled with books – everything from copies of a Palestine Colouring Book for kids to Edward Said’s Orientalism.
In the Public Eye
Journalists from national outlets hovered around the premise, greeted and accompanied by one of the media-trained campers acting as spokespeople. Shireen Abu Akleh media tent, named after a Palestinian-American journalist shot by Israeli forces while covering a raid, hosted a number of interviews.
This was also where the embedded journalist Madeleine Jane slept. She had been documenting the organisation for two weeks and planned to live in the encampment until its end. She told me: “every journalist thinks ‘yeah I totally would have covered the civil rights movement’ and every historian thinks ‘yeah I totally would have marched with the civil rights movement.’” This was the historical moment of her time, one that she wants to be able to tell her grandkids about.
Most interactions were mutually courteous, but not all media outlets were welcome: Daily Mail’s interview request was declined due to past “unfriendly” coverage, although the dissatisfied reporter was still allowed to roam the encampment. Later, two students independently alleged that she had been unzipping tents to look inside.
Camera crews trickled out by sunset and returned as early as sunrise. “I feel like I’m on a film set,” a student remarked. And indeed when I pulled up the news, I saw many of the masked faces and sombre eyes I’d become familiar with during my time there.
Night
As dusk descended, exterior lights of the Natural History Museum cast a faint warm glow upon the two dozen tents. An estimated 50 campers slept there – fewer than the two hundred during the day – their soft chatter and occasional laughter audible late into the night. Many voices carried American accents, and topics of discussion involved their jailed friends across the pond and their surprise at the gentle demeanour of the British police forces.
The organisers arranged guard shifts, taking campers’ essay-writing schedules into consideration. The pair of guards chatted by the entrance throughout the night, providing me a sense of safety the countless times I woke up shivering in the cold.
I got up at 4am, unable to sleep any longer on the ground that chilled me to the bones, and opened the tent to sludge muddier than the night before. The guards told me that many automated sprinklers had turned on throughout the night with no obvious pattern, splashing the tents and worsening the drainage situation. They had put trash bags over the sprinklers as a temporary solution.
The police came briefly at midnight and left without many words. A few foxes also visited – only to be shooed away.
Early morning guards replaced the night guards as golden sunlight swept over the campground. Campers stretched, challenged each other to push-ups, and ran laps around the grass – a brief reminder of their youth amongst the talk of war and death.
Connections and Hostilities
One of the early morning guards was an Israeli-born student who moved to the UK at age seven. His parents supported his involvement in the encampment, but his other relatives in Israel weren’t yet aware. “I often play a hypothetical in my head,” he said, “that if I hadn’t left I would have been drafted into the IDF [Israel Defense Forces].”
Two Jewish passersby separately approached the camp in the morning and expressed their support. One of them said that he had been involved in a Jewish student group for Palestine twenty years ago: “I’ve come to meet my juniors.”
The Israeli-British camper pulled out a Star of David from around his neck, “that’s me,” he smiled.
In another polite interaction, staff members from the Natural History Museum came to check that the encampment understood that the museum remains open.
But some encounters turned hostile. A construction worker employed by the company that upkeeps the grass entered the encampment despite being asked to remain outside. “Wakey wakey!” he yelled at the sleepy campers in the early morning as he took photos. He expressed his concern for the state of grass under the tents and foot traffic.
At breakfast a camper commented on the incident: “Grass grows back. Palestinian children don’t.”
Logistics
By day two shoes were caked with mud, and dramatic slips grew commonplace, so volunteers began fortifying the sinking footpath. The site ran on voluntary action, requiring no strict duties or hierarchies to be maintained. Yet the portable toilet remained in pristine condition.
Dr Hammam Alloh medical and welfare tent, named after an Al-Shifa Hospital physician killed by Israeli airstrike, stored boxes of supplies including first aid kits, sanitary pads, tampons, clothes, and hangers. A rigged car battery was used to charge cameras for journalists.
Central to the encampment were donations from the Oxford community. Upon seeing Oxford Action for Palestine’s wishlist on Instagram, people arrived with everything from hot meals to chairs. The community tent was quickly filled with piles of food.
There was no top-down leadership structure in the encampment despite its highly organised operations. While designated volunteers took charge of various logistical aspects such as media, the encampment had no hierarchy, and indeed the organisers’ meetings saw horizontal decision making processes.
As the encampment continued to capture Oxford and national attention, the protesters fought to direct all eyes on Gaza.
