Live updates: Students in Iowa City, University of Iowa lead protests supporting Palestinians

A day of organized Israel-Hamas war protests is planned in Iowa City Friday, beginning with a demonstration outside of City High School, followed by a three-day rally on the University of Iowa campus.

The demonstrations take place as student-led protests and encampments have swept across college campuses in America, with participants calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and for their respective universities to stop investing endowment money in Israel, among other demands.

This week, protestors at a rally at Iowa State University on May 1 demanded the school cut financial ties with companies that profit from the Israel-Hamas war.

Organizers of the three-day demonstration on the Pentacrest in Iowa City said they are not planning an encampment, and that they are “standing in solidarity” with other student protests — which have been the sites of increasingly hostile confrontations between protestors and police resulting in hundreds of arrests and injuries — and to facilitate “education and cultural exchange.”

The demonstration, which is planned from noon to 7 p.m. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, is said to include musical performances, artist demonstrations, and areas for prayer and study.

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More: Iowa City student group prepares for weekend Israel-Hamas war rally on Pentacrest

A student group at Iowa City High School organized a strike from 8:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. on Friday, May 3, encouraging students and community members to join them “in solidarity with students at Columbia University and across the country in standing up for the human rights of all Palestinians and denouncing the US-funded genocide.”

About a dozen participants were setting up the demonstration outside the high school before 9 a.m. The students plan to head to the Pentacrest at 3:30 p.m. Friday.

High school administration acknowledged a “student walkout” and that “students have the right to participate in organized protests,” in principal John Bacon’s email to the City High Community on Thursday, May 2.

In the email obtained by the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Bacon said that students who leave class to attend the demonstration will be marked with an unexcused absence unless parents excuse it by notifying the school.

Students who return to school after participating will have to check in at the main office.

More: Why are college students protesting across US for Palestinians? What about in Iowa?

Iowa City Press-Citizen reporters Jessica Rish and Julia Hansen contributed to this article.

Paris Barraza is a trending and general assignment reporter at the Des Moines Register. Reach her at pbarraza@registermedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ParisBarraza.