UK: Oxford, Cambridge students set up protest encampments for Gaza

Students at Britain's prestigious Oxford and Cambridge universities on Monday set up encampments for Gaza  as student protests continue to sweep across the UK.

Videos posted to social media show rows of tents on campus lawns and banners that read: "Welcome to the People’s University for Palestine", and dozens of students wearing the traditional keffiyeh scarf.

Tents were set up outside the University of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum and on the lawn of King's College at the University of Cambridge, according to a joint press statement by the newly-formed Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P) and Cambridge for Palestine (C4P).

"As members of these institutions, we refuse to accept our universities' complicity in Israel's war crimes against the Palestinian people – and we refuse to stand by while they justify Israel's campaign of mass slaughter, starvation, and displacement," the statement said.

Cambridge University launches encampment on Campus.

calling for their university to divest funds from israel and an end to their university’s complicity in israel’s ongoing genocide pic.twitter.com/DSfG2fRUfe

— Mohammad 🇵🇸 (@mohammadfff_) May 6, 2024

"Our universities' wealth and prestige stem directly from their role in the British Empire and its disastrous colonial legacies, including the Oxford and Cambridge men who authored the Balfour Declaration in 1917, ceding Palestinian land to the Zionist settler-colonial project," it said.

"In 2024, these universities may claim to be confronting their role in historic colonial violence – but their words ring hollow while they lend financial and moral support to Israel's genocide, occupation, and ongoing colonisation of Palestine," it added.

The students want their universities to disclose and divest from "financial and professional support" of the war in Gaza.

"As members of these institutions, we refuse to accept our universities' complicity in Israel's war crimes against the Palestinian people – and we refuse to stand by while they justify Israel's campaign of mass slaughter, starvation, and displacement," the statement said.

Oxford University with 🇵🇸pic.twitter.com/zu321yO3pO

— PalMedia (@PalBint) May 6, 2024

The sit-in protests, which echo protests similar actions in the US, have sprung up at other British universities including Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Sheffield and Newcastle over the last week.

A University of Cambridge spokesperson said: "The University is fully committed to academic freedom and freedom of speech within the law and we acknowledge the right to protest. We ask everyone in our community to treat each other with understanding and empathy. Our priority is the safety of all staff and students.

"We will not tolerate antisemitism, Islamophobia and any other form of racial or religious hatred, or other unlawful activity."

In Oxford, 108 lecturers, faculty members and researchers from multiple colleges have signed an open letter, saying they "stand firmly in support of the members of the university community who have begun an encampment outside the Pitt Rivers Museum".

The anti-war protests have been staged in response to Israel's relentless and indiscriminate attack on Gaza, which has killed over 34,700 people - most of whom were women and children, and flattened the Palestinian territory. 

Israel has been accused of genocide and war crimes by governments and NGOs as a result of its actions in the Palestinian enclave