Oxford and Cambridge students set up camps as campus protests against Gaza war gather steam

Protesters call for universities to cut financial ties with Israel

Students at Oxford and Cambridge have set up camps on their university campuses to protest Israel’s war on Gaza, mirroring similar protests across American universities and France’s prestigious Sciences Po University in Paris.

The Pitts River Museum lawns were occupied by demonstrators from Oxford Action for Palestine early Monday morning while Cambridge saw a “Liberated Zone” encampment erected outside King’s College.

The Oxford students, joined by staff members, set up “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” tents and put up posters reading “All eyes on Gaza”.

A joint statement issued by Oxford Action for Palestine and Cambridge for Palestine said they “refuse to accept our universities’ complicity in Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian people”.

“Oxbridge’s profits cannot continue to climb at the expense of Palestinian lives, and their reputations must no longer be built on the whitewashing of Israeli crimes,” they said. “Today we join the university students, faculty and staff across the globe who refuse to continue business as usual while our institutions profit from genocide.”

People walk past a pro-Palestine encampment set up by students at Oxford University (Getty)

The students also listed their demands on a poster stating they wanted the universities to “divest from Israeli genocide apartheid and occupation”, overhaul their investment policies and support Palestinian-led rebuilding of education in Gaza.

Poster lists the demands of students protesters at a pro-Palestine encampment at Oxford University (Getty)

Oxford Action for Palestine said they wanted members of the university to join the encampment and for Oxford to “sever institutional relationships that facilitate the genocide and occupation of the Palestinian people”.

Oxford’s faculty and staff members issued a statement backing the students, seeking an “unconditional and immediate ceasefire” and demanding that the university divest from Israeli institutions.

Oxford should “condemn the destruction of all of Gaza’s universities by Israel’s bombardment in the last six months and commit concrete resources both to support Palestinian scholars’ education and to rebuild Gaza’s destroyed institutions of higher education”, the statement read.

An Oxford University spokesperson said they respected the right to freedom of expression in the form of peaceful protests.

“We ask everyone who is taking part to do so with respect, courtesy and empathy,” the spokesperson said.

People hold placards and wave Palestinian flags as they take part in a demonstration in support to Palestinian people at University College London (AFP via Getty)

Students and staff at the University of London have set up a “Liberated Zone for Gaza” on campus stating that the institution was “deeply tied to Israeli settler colonialism” through investments in various companies.

Similar pro-Palestine encampments have been set up at universities in Manchester, Sheffield and Newcastle as well.

Students from the Cambridge Jews for Justice in Palestine group said they “refuse to sit by while our university is complicit in, and profits from, the genocide of Palestinians and we refuse to accept its commitment to murder and bloodshed as the status quo”.

The group’s spokesperson said they were joining “students across the world in refusing the weaponised conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism”.

The protests at British universities mirror pro-Palestine demonstrations across the US.

Columbia University on Monday cancelled its main graduation ceremony after weeks of pro-Palestinian protests on the Ivy League college’s campus.

“Holding a large commencement ceremony on our campus presented security concerns that unfortunately proved insurmountable,” Columbia spokesperson Ben Chang said. “Like our students, we are deeply disappointed with this outcome.”

The ceremony was scheduled for 15 May.

Mr Chang said the university had sought an alternative venue but couldn’t find one to accommodate the nearly 50,000 students, families and guests.

The protests at Columbia have drawn national attention and inspired similar demonstrations at dozens of universities around the country. The protesting students have been calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and have demanded their schools divest from companies with ties to Israel.

But the protests on several campuses, including Columbia, have attracted sometimes violent police action.