CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Students and others pitched tents on the campus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Friday, calling on the university “to divest from the ongoing genocide in Gaza” and forming an encampment similar to others on college campuses nationwide.

The event, which began around 10 a.m., was organized by the UNC chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which has held protests and other events on campus this academic year to support Palestinians as the Israel-Hamas war continues.

“We emphasize that this encampment serves to show solidarity with Gaza, which now has no more universities due to Israeli massacres with U.S.-made bombs. We stand in solidarity with our comrades at Columbia and across the U.S. who have been repressed, arrested, and physically attacked,” the group said in a news release Friday morning, referencing the ongoing protests at Columbia University that have become a flashpoint of pro-Palestinian student activism in recent weeks.

“The central purpose, however, of this encampment is to meet the demands of the present moment, and to center Palestine and call attention to the university’s participation in the genocide in Gaza,” the release stated.

More than a dozen tents and more than 100 people filled the middle of Polk Place, the central quad on the main part of campus. The tents were decorated with signs reading “Gaza solidarity encampment” and “free Palestine,” among other sayings.

Friday marked the second time in a week that the group has formed a tent encampment on campus to call attention to their demands. A week earlier on April 19, the group formed a similar encampment before being told by administrators that setting up temporary structures, including tents, on university grounds is prohibited unless approved in advance.

Students on Friday were seen speaking with university administrators Christi Hurt and Desirée Rieckenberg — interim Chancellor Lee Roberts’ chief of staff and the dean of students, respectively — throughout the afternoon, appearing to negotiate terms that would allow the group to remain protesting but to take down their tents.

Friday around 1 p.m., a student organizer announced to the encampment that they had reached an agreement with the administrators to take the tents down by 1:45. The group, which removed the poles from the tents but left the fabric remaining on the ground, planned to remain on the quad at least throughout the afternoon — but likely much longer.

“I just want to say loud and clear, that even though we take the poles out of our tents, we will remain here,” the student organizer said around 1 p.m. “We will not be leaving until the university divests.”

An evening Shabbat service, hosted by Jewish community groups in collaboration with the encampment, was planned for 7:30.

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