The Gaza solidarity encampment packed up and left last night after three days of camping on MSU campus. 

The protestors, who are calling on the university to divest from Israel and weapons manufacturers, said their demonstration has already achieved the goal of amplifying their demands. 

“We have demonstrated that students, faculty, staff, and community are willing to stand in solidarity with Palestine and push this university to change,” they wrote in a statement released via social media. “We have made the Board’s complicity in genocide an issue they can no longer ignore.”

Some of the protestors will travel to Ann Arbor to join the encampment at the University of Michigan today, according to the statement. 

Student protestor Jesse Estrada White said the students knew that staying for an extended period was likely not feasible, as students left campus last week after the semester ended. With campus closing for the summer, safety also became a concern for protestors who could no longer access campus buildings for proper sanitation. 

“We planned this action to send a message as a short-term, strategic strike and set of key goals, which we have accomplished,” the group’s statement said. 

But the students did not receive the response they were hoping for. In fact, Estrada White said their demands were misrepresented by the university. 

On the first day of the encampment, President Kevin Guskiewicz and other top administrators visited the camp to speak with protestors, who brought up the issue of divestment.

Guskiewicz deferred to MSU’s Board of Trustees, which he said is “reviewing our investment and endowment policies.”