A group called "Sinwar's Stick" has claimed responsibility for three signs on campus that were graffitied last week with the text “SINWAR LIVES” and an upside-down triangle.
The vandalism — which was reported to Penn's Division of Public Safety on Oct. 19 and 20 — appeared on signs at the ARCH Building, the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and near Penn Hillel. The group, which denied any affiliation to the University, wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian that “the decision to place these tags was a spontaneous one.”
The group declined to comment on any involvement in three additional instances of vandalism reported on Oct. 21 and 23.
The Israeli military killed Yahya Sinwar, the former leader of Hamas, in Gaza on Oct. 16. Sinwar played a central role in the planning of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, during which Hamas killed approximately 1,200 individuals and took another 250 hostage.
“We raised the slogan ‘Sinwar Lives’ because we were moved by Sinwar’s martyrdom,” the group wrote. They added Sinwar to a list of “those who took up arms against the oppressors” that also includes Haitian Revolution leader Toussaint Louverture, abolitionist John Brown, and “the rest of the Hamas and Palestinian Resistance leadership.”
“We raise this slogan in the spirit and memory of all those who lived and died like Sinwar, fighting to the last against the monstrous brutality of their oppressors,” the group wrote. “Those, like Sinwar, who struggle for liberation, will not only be absolved by history but rightly lifted up as heroes."
The group also expressed criticism of an article the DP published on Oct. 22 that initially reported the vandalism, writing that there were “omissions and [a] pro-Israel slant” in the story.
“This article emphasizes the death toll of the Al-Aqsa Flood military operation … and only quotes pro-Israel officials, organizations, and students,” they wrote. “The article also implicitly, absurdly, and without any evidence associates the use of the inverted triangle with Nazi concentration camp badges - neither we nor Hamas are referencing the camps any more than a three year old drawing triangles in preschool is.”
The upside-down triangle, which is typically red in color, has previously been used as a symbol for a number of purposes — including by the pro-Palestinian movement to represent solidarity with Palestinians and by the military wing of Hamas to identify targets.
The statement adds that the article omits “why the Palestinian people have reasonably, justifiably … and bravely turned to force of arms to defend themselves against those who wish to exterminate them.”
“What is left in, then, is simply a litany of uncontested slanders against the leaders of this resistance and those who support them,” the group wrote.
The DP President Molly Cohen did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.
The group concluded the statement by calling on “all people to broaden and intensify the struggle against the American-Israeli genocide in Gaza.”
“We all have done far too little to stop the evil taking place, and we see Sinwar’s courage and determination as a model for us all,” they wrote.
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