Students in more than 20 universities and colleges in various regions of Britain continue their open sit-ins in solidarity with the Gaza Strip, while a university in Belgium announced the cessation of cooperation with 3 Israeli research centers.
The students threatened to escalate their movement, to increase pressure on universities to cut all ties with institutions and companies that they say are complicit in the Israeli war of annihilation in Gaza.
The most prominent of these universities and colleges are: Cambridge, Oxford, and Queen Mary in London, King’s College London, the London School of Economics, University College in London, and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
Students at York University (central England) joined the growing student movement, and students and university employees set up their tents on its campus, considering that the university administration is still providing indirect support to Israel, despite its announcement that it will withdraw its investments from companies that manufacture and sell weapons to it.
Stop cooperation
In Belgium, the President of Ghent University announced the cessation of cooperation with 3 Israeli research centers that deal with the occupation army to produce weapons since the beginning of the war on Gaza.
This comes 10 days after the start of a student sit-in in the main university building to demand the severing of academic relations with Israel.
The students confirmed that they will continue their sit-in until all their demands are met, which is to stop all existing forms of cooperation with Israel and completely sever ties with it.
In the Netherlands, the European Palestinian Media Center broadcast live scenes of the police beginning to disperse the student sit-in in solidarity with Gaza at the University of Amsterdam.
The scenes show students forming a human barrier in front of the police, holding up pictures of martyred children, while the police are trying to enter the university campus to disperse the students demanding an end to the Israeli war on Gaza.
In the United States, the cradle of pro-Gaza student protests, police broke up a sit-in in support of the Palestinians at DePaul University in Chicago, after the university president asked the students to leave the area or face arrest.
Police officers removed the tents of the protesting students, while the head of the city’s police department, John Hein, said that all the protesters on the university campus left the area voluntarily upon the police’s arrival.
Hein pointed out that there were no confrontations between the students and the police forces, and there was no resistance during the process of dispersing the sit-in.
Injured at Columbia University
In a related context, Reuters said that according to interviews, medical records, and photos shared by demonstrators, it became clear that at least 9 students were injured among the 46 demonstrators who were arrested at Columbia University on April 30, which contradicts the story of the New York City Municipality, which denied that any injuries occurred during the attack. Breaking up protests at the university.
Documented injuries included fractured eye sockets, concussions, sprained ankles, and cuts and injuries to the wrists and hands caused by tight plastic handcuffs.
All of the protesters who were arrested inside the university faced charges of third-degree trespassing, which is a misdemeanor.
The arrests came after a controversial decision by Columbia University President Nemat Shafiq, who called in the police to break up the student protest that sparked protests in support of Gaza across the United States, and later in several universities and colleges around the world.
