Representative funeral ceremony for those killed in Gaza

Academicians and students at Van Yüzüncü Yıl University (YYÜ) held a representative funeral ceremony for those who lost their lives in Gaza.

Academicians and students gathered in front of the Campus Mosque after the Friday prayer and walked to the central cafeteria building, carrying the representative funeral. Academicians and students who performed the funeral prayer in absentia here protested Israel’s attacks by chanting the slogans “Babies are dying in Palestine, we must not remain silent” and “Long live free Palestine”.

Speaking after the ceremony, Van YYÜ Vocational School Lecturer Yücel İslam stated that they have been trying to do their best for Gaza for about 25 days and said, “We are here because our problem is these oppressions happening in all oppressed geographies. We are here because we experience such things within ourselves, in our hearts, and even on our agenda. We are doing some activities in a tent that we call the Gaza Watch Tent. I can say that our numbers here are increasing day by day. They really started to see this place as a school. The blood of the martyrs in Gaza is so valuable. It has led to the revival and re-knowing of many people. Some people have begun to realize how they waste their lives with very irrelevant things on their agenda. We have been living in this geography for more than a thousand years. As a society, we are suffering from these events, that is, massacres, that are right next to us. As humans, maybe we are not sensitive enough as humanity. We see this. Because if we didn’t keep silent, they wouldn’t be this strong,” he said.

Doğan Yelboğa, a second-year student studying at YYÜ in Van, said, “We are trying to make this oppression heard as much as we can here. We are trying to raise our voices with our teachers. We are trying to make the oppression of the oppressor heard. Today was our last day and we wanted to end our last day with a funeral prayer. May God bless those who participated.” -VAN