Where pro-Palestinian university protests are happening around the world

London- Protests in solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip have devastated university campuses in the United States in recent weeks, but they have also spread rapidly around the world.

Demonstrations have emerged on the campuses of major universities across the Arab and Western world as the war rages on. Below is where some of the biggest protests have taken shape.

Lebanon

In Lebanon, hundreds of students gathered this week on university campuses in Beirut, the country’s capital. A video posted online from the American University of Beirut showed protesters waving Palestinian flags and signs emblazoned with messages. Demanding the university cut all business ties with Israel..

“This is not just about the Palestinians, of course; it is, but it is also about what is happening to us in our own country,” Karine Ballout, a 23-year-old Lebanese student at the university, told CBS News on Thursday. . “We call for an immediate end to the US-backed Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, and also an immediate end to US-backed Israeli aggression against Lebanon.”

Israel has exchanged fire with Hezbollah, based in Lebanon group, a Hamas ally that Also backed by Iran., since the war began in October. 7. The war was sparked by the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people and saw militants take another 240 hostage. There are believed to be 100 people, including five American citizens, still alive and held captive in Gaza.

“Of course we were inspired by the protests in the United States and Columbia University in particular,” Rayyan Kilani, 21, a student at American University, told Reuters news agency.

Jordan

Thousands of protesters have also demonstrated in Jordan, which, like Lebanon, borders Israel, in solidarity with Palestinians since the war broke out, including university students.

However, Jordanian authorities have cracked down on university activists over the past seven months of the war, and activists canceled a sit-in that had been planned for Tuesday at Jordan University in Amman, Reuters reported.

DAWN, an organization focused on human rights in the Middle East, has said that at least nine students have been arrested and five expelled or suspended for participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Jordan since October 1. 7.

“As King Abdullah protests loudly to the international community about the war in Gaza, he is not allowing Jordanians the same right to express their own views,” said DAWN senior consultant Jamal Al Tahat in a March press release.

United Kingdom

Mass demonstrations have occurred on university campuses across the United Kingdom since the war began, including at Oxford University, Newcastle University, Warwick University, and University College London, among others.

At University College London, protesters have called for the school to sever its ties with Tel Aviv University and cut all financial ties to arms manufacturers they say support Israel’s war effort.

“Our demands are basically to demand that UCL end its complicity in what we consider a genocide in Gaza… to demand an academic boycott because Tel Aviv, like many other Israeli universities, is integrated into the Israeli military establishment,” he said. Bushra, a 24-year-old UCL master’s student who gave only her first name, told CBS News on Thursday. “UCL has collaborations with BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin; there has been no statement about the ethical nature of these partnerships.”

Bushra said he stands in solidarity with American protesters facing police repression on some campuses, but emphasized that the focus should be on Loop.

“Activists in Columbia have said the same thing,” he told CBS News. “Whatever oppression they face, it is not even the smallest fraction of the suffering faced by the people of Palestine.”

France

At the renowned French university Sciences Po Paris, protesters clashed with riot police over the past week, and several dozen officers entered the school to clear out about 60 protesters who had set up camp, according to Le Monde newspaper.

On Wednesday, the Sciences Po Palestinian Committee, which organized the protests, published a map showing where protests against the war in Gaza were scheduled at universities across France.

“While students at American universities are repressed, the movement spreads throughout France,” the group stated in its Instagram post.

Australia

University sit-ins have also emerged in the Australian cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and the capital, Canberra, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp., mirroring tent encampments at American universities.

Australian students have also called on their universities to divest from Israel and disclose and cut ties with arms manufacturers that do business with Israel, the Australian national broadcaster said.

A son some US campusesThere have been reports of antisemitism amid protests at universities across Australia.

On Wednesday, the Australian Union of Jewish Students said that since the outbreak of war, “Jewish students have been targeted at university events and required to publicly declare their political stances during classes,” adding its concern because “we are witnessing a further escalation in the defamation of Jewish students.”

Canada

Closer to the chaos unfolding in the United States, student protesters set up camp on common ground on the University of Toronto campus, Canadian national broadcaster CBC reported Thursday.

Activists there issued similar demands for their university to divest of assets that “sustain Israeli apartheid, the occupation and the illegal settlements of Palestine,” according to CBC News.