The Italian University of Palermo announced yesterday, Tuesday, a boycott of all academic relations with Israeli universities until the end of the Israeli war on Gaza. The decision came 26 days after a sit-in held by university students in protest against the links that link their university with Israeli researchers and universities.
The decision of the Academic Council at the University of Palermo (established in 1806) to suspend its agreements with Israeli universities follows what they described as “the lack of necessary security guarantees that the delegated participants will face in this sensitive moment of international crisis.”
The Council also announced its endeavor to take measures aimed at supporting the Palestinian education system.
For their part, the protesters demanding the severing of relations with Israeli universities considered that the university’s decision fulfills the demands for which they organized their protest.
It is noteworthy that Europe, the United States of America and other countries are witnessing an increase in student protests in support of Palestine, which call for an end to the Israeli war on Gaza, and also call for the withdrawal of any investments or relationships that these universities have with Israeli companies that they consider complicit in the war of extermination waged by the Israeli occupation forces. On the Gaza Strip for more than 8 months.
The Israeli war on Gaza left more than 119,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded – most of them children and women – and about 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that claimed the lives of children and the elderly.
Israel continues this war, ignoring a Security Council resolution demanding that it stop the fighting immediately, and orders from the Court of Justice demanding that it stop its attack on Rafah and take immediate measures to prevent acts of genocide and improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.