On the afternoon of September 15th, students and faculty began to rechalk the names of Palestinian children killed in the State of Israel’s ongoing genocide onto Trent University’s Alareer Bridge. 

This comes after the Refaat Alareer Bridge memorial—renamed after a Palestinian professor killed in an Israeli airstrike last December—was vandalized with pro-Israeli messaging in early August. 

Arthur responded to a tip regarding the vandalism August 5th and arrived on scene to find dozens of names crossed out, with slogans like “RELEASE HOSTAGES [sic]” and Stars of David written over not only the memorial, but other unrelated activist messaging as well. 

The Alareer Bridge memorial was first established by Students for Palestine (S4P) in May of 2024 as a vigil to commemorate the lives of 14,500 Palestinian children killed by Israel’s genocidal military offenses on Gaza. Since then, the number of those killed has increased to nearly 19,000 children, according to Al-Jazeera. 

“[This year,] we only got to age five and ran out of room,” Faculty for Palestine (F4P) member and professor Kirsten Francescone told Arthur. “More names have clearly been added to those age groups that we couldn’t get to age eight like last year.”

In the year since the initial chalking, the conditions in the Gaza Strip have significantly worsened, with continuing bombardments to the area and widespread starvation due to the restriction of humanitarian aid killing nearly 28 children daily. 

“The challenge of collecting data in a genocide makes the numbers unreliable, but we do know that it's been hundreds of children in the past two months who have been forcibly starved by Israel,” Francescone told Arthur. “So hundreds of children who have not had access to food because Israel is blocking aid are dying.” 

“The attack on Gazan children has been systematic and unrelenting,” she continued, washing off old chalk. “There’s thousands more names that could be added to this bridge today, if there was actually space to add them.” 

The emotional weight of adding more names to the Alareer Bridge was especially heavy for students returning to Trent.

Areena, a director at S4P, was out of the country when the vandalism occurred.

“It felt so heartbreaking and devastating, because every time I see this bridge, and every time we write the names of the bridge, it's so powerful, especially when people see the list,” Areena told Arthur. 

“For people to be so heartless and write over those names of children that were killed, it was heartbreaking, but it was also very angering,” she said. 

“The other thing that I personally find heartbreaking is conflating the religion of Judaism with Zionist ideology,” Areena continued. “That's also very harmful for the Jewish community to be conflated with vandalism of children that were killed.” 

Areena also condemns the lack of response from Trent University adminstration, feeling that the demands of S4P are “not taken seriously.”

“[Trent] didn't acknowledge the fact that it was straight up vandalism, and they have never really acknowledged our demands,” she told Arthur. 

“I feel like it's a hypocritical stance for Trent to promote social justice, environmental justice activism, but when it is actually happening, when there is pushback coming back to them, when there is a demand for a statement, and then there's crickets on their end, what is the point?”

Alyssa, a returning student involved in the initial chalking, also felt that the atmosphere of the rechalking was distinctly different from when the vigil was established last year. 

“Now, just having walked over the bridge so many times, seeing the names, and then just looking at any individual name and wondering about them in their life and the people that they had that loved them,” Alyssa told Arthur. “And now thinking about their names getting erased is just so horrifying to think about.” 

“They themselves were erased again, and it hurts.” 

Alyssa was also away when the vandalism occurred. 

“It was just infuriating because this is a memorial to children,” she continued. “I can't even imagine what it would have been like to be motivated to do something like that to write over these names of children. It's just horrifying.”

Alongside writing the names of children killed, attendees were also encouraged to write messages of support for Waseem, a Trent doctoral student stranded in northern Gaza, on the bridge. His supervisor, Dr. Aaron Shafer, was among the faculty present at the rechalking. 

Dr. Shafer was among Canadian scholars in a news conference in Ottawa last Monday with Palestinian Students and Scholars at Risk (PSSAR) calling for the federal government and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to take greater action to expedite Palestinian student visas and evacuate international students trapped in Gaza. 

There are over 70 graduate Palestinian students currently admitted to Canadian universities but are stranded as a result of the visa approval process. Waseem is one of them. 

“We're asking for the visas to be expedited, so the actual process Palestinian students are subjected to a secondary round of security checks, unlike any other country in the world right now, and that process has more or less been stalled for 14 months,” Shafer told Arthur. 

“There's a lot of fear-based inaction that happens with Palestine. But the end result with that is students’ lives are at risk, and some students are actually being killed while waiting for their visas,” Shafer continued, referring to Sally and Dalia Ghazi Ibaid, who were accepted to pursue doctorates at the University of Waterloo before being killed while crossing the Rafah border in December of 2024. 

“My student right now is currently under evacuation orders. I had a message from him two hours ago, and he is scared they are dying,” he said. “The government needs to act.”

“The bridge is a gesture that the students are leading. It's important to recognize the names of kids that will not get the opportunity to go to university.”

11 names of Waseem’s extended family members are now included in the bridge memorial, four of whom were under ten years old.

As students continued to go about using the Alareer Bridge—most of which were ignoring the chalking taking place—Shafer was hopeful that the vigil would continue to bring needed attention to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

“The challenge with everything in modern society is trying to get the attention of people,” Shafer told Arthur. “It will have an effect, as one out of every 100, of every 200 students will stop and look and that is meaningful.”

“I know for a fact that this is meaningful to those families and students in Gaza. And I know for a fact when these names are up during convocation, during open house, and I hope they're here for the next convocation, in the next open house, it forces visitors to confront the reality of Canada's silence on the matter.”