Hampton University students walked out of college buildings Wednesday to demand an end to U.S. aid to Israel and continued airstrikes in Gaza.

Manuel Antonio Rodriguez is a senior at Hampton. He’s a member of the college’s chapter of Dissenters, a national organization of student antiwar activists.

He said the narratives he’s heard about the war are familiar.

“With us being on a HBCU campus … the Palestinian conflict and the struggle that they experience to this day has been coexisting and integral to a lot of the Black struggle,” he said.

Dante Belcher is another member of Hampton’s Dissenters chapter. He said one of the protest’s goals is to demand universities divest from defense companies who have supplied the Israeli military with money and weapons for decades.

Several Virginia colleges, notably Virginia Tech, have relationships with defense companies like Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Boeing. Those include research partnerships, career readiness programs and even education opportunities for company employees.

Rodriguez hasn’t heard much about the war on campus, and he wants to start conversations with other students.

“By using our voices, by using our bodies as a means to say we are not for this, our money should not be invested towards this, our tax dollars should not be invested towards this, we have a power as a collective,” Rodriguez said.

Israel receives over $3 billion from the U.S. annually. Almost all the money was for the country’s  military. President Joe Biden also recently proposed another $14 billion for Israel in his new national security budget proposal.

Virginia leaders have also called for financial and other support for Israel, including sending excess policing equipment to the country.

Rodriguez said doing that perpetuates the conflict.

“There is somebody in your local community area that is contributing towards marginalization and oppression happening overseas,” he said.

Belcher said it was important to him to involve other students and let others know their position.

“When a community comes together, they can be a very powerful force,” Belcher said.