In the days following a tabling event during which an unidentified Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier tackled a Stanford student, campus groups and activists used demonstrations and online statements to call for a more decisive University response.

At the Wednesday event, Melanie Shiraz, who was crowned Miss Israel 2025, and the soldier stood behind a sign that read “I’m Miss Israel. I’m an IDF Soldier. Ask us anything.” Eyewitnesses said that Margil Sanchez Carmona ’28 grabbed the cardboard sign from the table and began to bike away from White Plaza. The soldier then tackled Sanchez Carmona to retrieve the sign.

Shiraz and the soldier offered virtual reality (VR) headsets to passersby. The headsets played videos depicting a Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023. When Sanchez Carmona took a sign from the table, Shiraz said she and the soldier thought he might have stolen one of the headsets.

Approximately 100 students gathered at a Friday rally organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), calling for a ban on all IDF affiliates from campus, a detailed AlertSU about the incident and an investigation into the soldier and those who invited him to White Plaza.

“When an assault like this happens and there’s so much silence and inaction from administration, in addition to standing up for each other, we really need to put pressure on admin to ban IDF soldiers on campus, because it makes us unsafe,” SJP organizer Amanda Campos ’26, who spoke at the rally, told The Daily.

“White Plaza is a designated free speech zone, and Stanford is committed to ensuring that it is a space where all individuals can safely and openly express their views,” Stanford Department of Public Safety (SUDPS) spokesperson Bill Larson wrote in a joint statement with University Communications. “We strongly encourage peaceful expression and civil discourse, including on difficult topics.”

Volunteers at the rally passed out fliers that read, “We condemn the IDF soldier who assaulted a student and Stanford welcoming the war criminal onto campus. And Stanford should too.” Attendees waved Palestinian flags and homemade signs embellished with slogans like “IDF out,” “People’s University” and “The free world hates Israel.” 

German Gonzalez ’27, who is currently on trial as one of the 11 pro-Palestine protesters who barricaded themselves in the president’s office during a June 2024 protest, spoke at Friday’s demonstration. Following his speech, Campos, Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Civil Rights Coordinator Hibah Hammoudeh and organizers with the Palestinian Youth Movement addressed the crowd.

“Students deserve to know when violent assaults happen on campus,” Gonzalez said in his speech. “They deserve to know the perpetrators, and the perpetrators deserve to be brought to justice.”

Gonzalez and other speakers led the crowd in chants of “We want justice you say how? Ban the IDF now!” and “When students’ rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!”

Jason Ferrel ’29 said he attended the protest because he witnessed the Wednesday altercation. “It’s pretty horrible to see any altercation on campus turn physical,” he said. “[Stanford] is supposed to be, more than anywhere else, a safe space for free speech and avoiding violence at all costs.”

SUDPS officers “responded to the scene and a thorough investigation is ongoing,” Larson wrote. The department “intends to submit the results of this investigation to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office for review,” according to the statement.

The tackle occurred after a debate between those tabling and a group of students became increasingly “heated,” eyewitnesses said. Shiraz characterized the gathering prior to the altercation as “violent” and “hateful.” 

Hana Spahia ’26 said that she was taking part in a discussion with the soldier when Sanchez Carmona took the sign. According to Spahia, she called the police after the soldier tackled Sanchez Carmona because “it appeared from [her] perspective that [the soldier] was choking the student.”

According to Sanchez Carmona, the soldier grabbed him by the backpack and pulled him backwards, then “launched at [him] from the side,” knocking him off his bike. The soldier then put Sanchez Carmona in a chokehold, and maintained the position for “a couple of seconds.” Sanchez Carmona said he was not physically hurt by the tackle.

The Stanford Student Palestinian Association (SSPA) responded to Wednesday’s events in a Friday statement on its Instagram page, stating that “a Palestinian student at Stanford was harassed and targeted” by the soldier.

The soldier “followed our student unprovoked, shouting dehumanizing slurs in English and broken Arabic,” the statement reads.

The student, who requested anonymity due to concerns related to his international status, said he stopped by the soldier and Shiraz’s table because he knew Spahia and some of the other students who were gathered nearby. The student said he did not engage with those tabling, and walked away after a few minutes. The soldier began to shout at him as he left White Plaza, according to the student.

“For me to be 7,000 miles away from home and on a daily basis, living and thinking about what the IDF is doing to my family back [in Gaza], and then come here and have an IDF soldier shout at me on my campus? It’s just bizarre,” the student told The Daily.

The Daily has reached out to Shiraz for further comment.

During a Thursday Faculty Senate meeting, Provost Jenny Martinez fielded questions from Undergraduate Senate (UGS) officers and faculty senators about the University’s response to Wednesday’s altercation.

Martinez stated that she did not have sufficient familiarity with the situation or related law to answer questions about issuing a stay-away order towards the soldier. She also said she did not have details about the event’s registration or what information the University will be able to share regarding the ongoing investigation into the soldier.

In a statement released the same day, UGS Chair David Sengthay ’26 and UGS Administration and Rules Chair Dan Kubota ’27 wrote that “the university’s response to date has been insufficient.”

“This was not simply a spontaneous act by an individual,” Sengthay and Kubota wrote in the statement, which was sent in an email to the student body. “It was an organized tabling event. The investigation must consider who invited this individual to campus and whether proper registration was followed.”