Pro-Palestine students took to UK campuses on Monday, October 7, staging walk-outs and protests at the same time as vigils were held for the Israeli victims of the Hamas massacre one year ago today.
Palestine groups at universities across the country also began a call to Wear a Keffiyeh for a week beginning Monday 7, encouraging students to wear the headdress – which has become a symbol of Palestine advocacy – as a sign of solidarity on campus.
At the University of Manchester (UoM), pro-Palestine students set up a mass demonstration, organized by Manchester Leftist Action and Youth Front for Palestine, to coincide with the World Academic Summit, which is running from Monday to Wednesday.
This comes after the same group set up an encampment on UoM’s campus on Friday in protest against the university’s alleged complicity with Israel.
In a statement on their social media, the groups said the demonstration was a “call for everyone in Manchester, community members, and activists, to join the visual commemoration of a year of genocide.”
“We will be doing a Human Chain along Oxford Rd. and holding the posters of our child martyrs, journalists, and healthcare workers – marking what a year of displacement, destruction, and murder has looked like in Gaza,” they stated.
The activists took issue with the UoM’s partnership with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University.
The group’s spokesperson said, “We cannot stay silent while our counterparts in Gaza have no universities to go to.”
On their Instagram, Manchester Leftist Action posted pictures of various UK university presidents and vice-chancellors with a wanted banner written above, designed to look like blood.
Protests across the UK
At the University of Edinburgh, the Justice for Palestine Society organized a protest to take place on campus on Monday afternoon, to coincide with memorials.
The event organizers posted “All out for October 7. Long live the student intifada.”
Under the title of “One Year of Genocide,” SOAS University’s Palestine group organized a mass walk-out on Monday afternoon, as well as a vigil honoring “martyrs.”
The group also renamed the University as School of Apartheid Studies in honor of their ethos.
Similar rallies were organized for the University of Birmingham, Queen Mary, among others.
The London School of Economics Palestine Society and Islamic Society held a screening of Al Jazeera’s investigation into Israel’s war in Gaza on Monday.
The film, released this weekend, doxxes Israeli soldiers by featuring their names and units as well as pictures from their social media apparently as a form of revenge.