2024 University of Virginia pro-Palestinian campus occupation

In May 2024, pro-Palestinian student protesters at the University of Virginia demonstrated on the campus. The protesters organized an occupation on university grounds in support of Palestinian nationalism in the context of the Israel–Hamas war.

Students organized various protest activities at the University of Virginia from the start of the Israel-Hamas war. In April 2024 in the global media beyond Charlottesville, Donald Trump made comparisons of pro-Palestinian protesters at universities nationwide to the hostile aggressors at the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally. On May 1 students established a protest encampment at the university. On May 4, police ended the protest by pepper spraying demonstrators and arresting 27 of them.

Background
The University of Virginia is a school in Charlottesville, Virginia.

At the time of the pro-Palestinian protests, there was still a strong community memory of the 2017 white supremacy rally, Unite the Right. More generally, former president Donald Trump had been comparing pro-Palestinian protesters at universities nationwide to the hostile aggressors at the Unite the Right rally. A commentator for The New Republic described the comparison of pro-Palestinian protesters with Charlottesville Neo-Nazis as despicable and slander.

Following the October 7 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, protests in support of Palestine included a student group publishing an October 11 statement of support for a Free Palestine. On April 19 students organized a die-in on The Lawn.

Previous pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the community included a 2021 Palestinian solidarity march.

Demonstration
On Tuesday, April 30, student groups decided to convene a demonstration for Palestine starting the following day, Wednesday, May 1. The decision to act was in part due to student reports of violent ends to similar demonstrations at the nearby Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia Tech. At the establishment of the protest, opponents compared the pro-Palestinian demonstrators to the white supremacists who organized the Unite the Right rally.

The encampment was near the University Chapel.

By the third day the occupation was robust and seemed prepared to continue indefinitely. In response to student demonstrations, University of Virginia professors organized a scholarly dialogue about the war.

On the fourth day the protesters announced their publication of a statement on an official Instagram account. Their demands included that the university begin disinvestment from Israel.

On Saturday, May 4, police force ended the demonstration. The New York Times described the University of Virginia arrests as among the most prominent in the nation. Police used pepper spray on the demonstrators and then arrested 25 of them for trespassing.

Reactions
The University of Virginia newspaper The Cavelier Daily, the local newspaper Charlottesville Tomorrow, and the university official communications described protesters as "Pro-Palestinian";  local newspaper The Daily Progress described them as "anti-war"; and national news source Fox News described them as "anti-Israel";

The University of Virginia and university president James E. Ryan issued official statements on May 4 that the demonstration was over because the protestors refused to comply with university policy and because of violent conduct. Ryan additionally made his own personal and official statement.