"It's a very hateful and scary and terrifying term to say to Jewish students and has no place on the campus of the University of Michigan," Rosen said. "I hope the administration ends this immediately."

But Hamamy said that intifada is an Arabic word meaning "resistance" and a "revolution."

"A lot of times non-Arab speakers try to twist the word to demonize us," Hamamy said. "The proper definition of intifada is simply community uprising, shaking off oppression."

Many student activists said efforts to divest have ramped up amid the war and because of the humanitarian crisis involving Palestinians.

The encampment came less than a month after student activists lobbying the university to divest funds from Israel shut down a celebration of high-achieving students at UM's 101th Honors Convocation, the first university event activists have disrupted. UM has since been working on a policy that would ban infringing "on the exercise of others’ speech and activities by disrupting the normal celebrations, activities, and operations of the university."

It was organized by the TAHRIR Coalition, a student-led coalition advocating for divestment in Israel and includes more than 80 student organizations.

Zainab Hakim, a senior from Canton Township, said the protesters were on the Diag after numerous actions in the past year and after the UM administration had refused to meet with them to address their concerns.

"All across the world, people are standing up against Israel, and in its most recent in a long list of crimes, the ongoing genocide in Gaza," Hakim told the crowd. "We stand in the spirit of the 1986 anti-apartheid efforts that were spearheaded in this very Diag by previous generations and organizers."

Hakim was referring to the movement at UM to raise awareness of anti-apartheid in South Africa and eventually convince UM in the 1980s to divest its holdings in the African nation.

During the rally, Murad Idris, a UM professor of political science, hailed the activists for their "bravery."

"We have seen you, a coalition of students from all backgrounds, come together and say, 'We refuse to be silent when there is an ongoing genocide,'" Idris said. "You have modeled the courage of speaking up ... while speaking truth to power, truth to administrators.

"You, our students, are brave and you, our students, give us hope."

Afterward, students marched around the encampment, holding signs and chanting as UM police officers stood nearby: "Disclose! Divest! We will not stop. We will not rest."

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