USC students posted flyers for Israelis kidnapped by Hamas Tuesday in front of Tommy Trojan, just days after a viral video showed two people tearing down similar posters around campus — underscoring deep divisions at home as the war in Israel enters its fourth week.
Tuesday’s display included flyers with the names, ages and photos of hostages taped to the brick courtyard, with blue and white balloons secured by thread floating above them. The visual managed to draw the attention of students walking down the busy Trousdale Parkway, many of whom stopped to read the posters.
“This isn’t a political statement,” said Andrew Turquie, a junior who helped organize the display. “Jewish people on campus are suffering, and Israelis are suffering.”
Turquie, who helped post the flyers that got torn down in last week’s viral video, said one of his own friends ranks among the more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas — a U.S.-designated terrorist organization — during its Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel.
“Just because there are posters of Jewish victims doesn’t mean that we’re not recognizing the fact that there’s Palestinian suffering,” Turquie said. “We’re not going to go around tearing down someone else’s posters. A human life is a human life.”
Israel has reported more than 1,400 deaths since the onset of the war, and Gaza’s health ministry has reported well over 8,000 as Israeli airstrikes continue to pummel the Hamas-controlled enclave. On Tuesday, Israel claimed responsibility for an airstrike on a densely populated refugee camp that the country’s military said killed a Hamas commander.
“I hadn’t seen all the hostages laid out before,” said Carly, a student who observed the display at USC and requested to be identified only by first name out of fear of backlash. “The ones that are the most striking are the ones of children.”
Two Department of Public Safety officers on watch said the students had acquired the necessary permits for the display. Rabbi Dov Wagner, who runs the Rohr Chabad Jewish Center, said students would remove the posters before a pro-Palestine protest scheduled later in the day — an effort to “turn down the temperature.”
Earlier this week, federal officials said they’ll partner with campus law enforcement to track antisemitic threats across the U.S. as university leaders grapple with a scourge of divisive, and sometimes dangerous, rhetoric.
Notably, at Cornell University, online posts threatened to shoot, behead, rape and slit the throats of Jewish students. The Anti-Defamation League last week reported a nearly 400% increase in antisemitic incidents.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, for its part, said it has received the largest wave of complaints reporting Islamophobia since Donald Trump announced a plan to implement a travel ban on Muslim countries. And a website dedicated to doxxing pro-Palestinian college students and professors has gone viral.
“Hate speech is antithetical to our values and any threats of violence are unacceptable,” USC officials wrote in a memo Tuesday. “Anyone who incites violence will be referred immediately to law enforcement for investigation and prosecution.”