The University of Windsor is anticipating more protests this weekend on campus.
President Dr. Robert Gordon says Thursday's protest was peaceful and demonstrators left the campus around 8:30 p.m.
He says there is a sense another protest will occur Friday on campus.
As AM800 news reported on Thursday, a 'liberation zone' was set up near Dillon Hall by a student coalition in support of the pro-Palestinian movement.
The liberation zone included chantings, teach-ins about Palestinian history, culture, and solidarity with other occupied peoples.
The student group is calling upon the university to disclose all institutional expenditures, divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation, and declare its opposition to the Israeli occupation in the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.
Dr. Gordon says the university is aware its student government (UWSA) has supported a number of motions.
"We have yet to receive those letters to our board of governors and to our university senate, we are waiting for those and then once we receive whatever those motions are and those hopes that those motions put forward, we will evaluate them as we do many other issues that are brought to our attention as well," says Dr. Gordon.
He says the university is committed to supporting the safety of the entire campus.
"Really proud that it was peaceful, that it was supportive and it was engaging with the university as well," says Dr. Gordon. "Our commitment is around supporting free expression and certainly protest like are one way at which we do that as an institution. Our university is one of varied opinions, opportunities for knowledge exchange, for thought and for really opinions to be expressed and we really support those happening on our campus like they have been as well."
The zone in Windsor comes after encampments and Liberation Zones at other universities such as McGill, McMaster, Toronto Metropolitan University, the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto among others.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas' launched an attack from Gaza into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, with some 240 others taken hostage. In response, Israel launched an air, ground, and sea assault in Gaza, which is estimated to have killed nearly 35,000 people.