University of San Francisco students join protests in support of Gaza

AA / New York / Mücahit Oktay

Students at the American University of San Francisco have joined the ongoing protests at American universities in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Students set up about two dozen tents on the university campus to launch a “Gaza Solidarity Camp,” in a move similar to what is happening at Columbia University, the cradle of the protests.

Pro-Palestinian students chanted “Freedom to Palestine” while handing out leaflets demanding that the university administration not use security forces to disperse their rally.

They also called on the administration of the institution not to impose academic sanctions on students and to respect their right to demonstrate on campus.

The protesters are also demanding that the university cancel its business contracts with companies that manufacture military equipment for Israel, such as Lockheed Martin and HP.

These developments at the University of San Francisco coincide with similar protests at more than 70 universities across the United States, where police have arrested hundreds of student protesters.

Students who reject Israel’s war in Gaza began a sit-in on the Columbia University campus in New York on April 18, demanding that its administration end academic cooperation with Israeli universities and withdraw its investments in companies that support the occupation of the Palestinian territories. .

With the intervention of police forces and the arrest of dozens of students, the state of anger grew and demonstrations spread to dozens of universities in the United States, including the plans of top universities such as Harvard, George Washington, New York, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and North Carolina.

Later, the unprecedented movement in the United States spread to universities in other countries, such as France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, where there were all demonstrations in support of Palestine.

The war in the Gaza Strip has left 34,356 dead and more than 77,368 wounded, mostly children and women, as well as mass destruction and starvation that claimed the lives of children and the elderly, according to Palestinian and UN figures.

Israel continues its war against the Palestinian enclave, despite the Security Council’s immediate adoption of a cease-fire resolution and despite its appearance before the International Court of Justice on charges of “genocide”.

*Translated from Arabic by Wejden Jlassi

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