Earlier on April 26, a coalition of Duke students, faculty, staff and community members organized a pro-Palestinian rally on Abele Quad calling on the University to divest — one of the largest protests on Duke’s campus since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7. The movement to divest from Israel first gained traction across college campuses in May 2002 when faculty members from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created a petition urging the government to financially sanction Israel for the “IDF[’s] reoccupation of Palestinian areas” and failure to comply with United Nations Resolution 242 amidst the second intifada.