Hundreds of academics, staff at University of Oxford demand divestment from 'Israel’s genocide in Gaza'

By Burak Bir

OXFORD, England (AA) - Some 500 members of faculty and staff of the University of Oxford expressed their firm support to encampment protests in solidarity with Gaza and demanded that the university divest from "Israel’s genocide in Gaza."

A joint statement, signed by some 500 professors, associate professors, researchers, and university staff, expressed support for encampment protests and students' demand for divestment from Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Israel’s ongoing "apartheid regime" against Palestinians and its illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Describing the situation in the Gaza Strip as "catastrophic," the statement recalled that the International Court of Justice has characterized it as plausibly amounting to genocide.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January said it is "plausible" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and ordered Tel Aviv to stop such acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza

"We consider our students’ demands entirely reasonable given the University of Oxford’s commitment to global leadership in education and to furthering educational opportunities internationally," it noted.

The statement added: "We further call for the release of Palestinian prisoners held under administrative detention in Israeli prisons, many of them arrested as children. We also ask the university itself to take a number of other urgent measures."

Saying that currently, Oxford holds a policy of no direct investment in arms, the signatories said that they join Oxford students in asking that the university review its ethical investment policy to explicitly restrict all investment in arms, weapons, and other instruments of war.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip in retaliation for a Hamas attack last Oct. 7, which killed 1,200 people. More than 34,900 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, mostly women and children, and over 78,500 others injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Over seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine, according to the UN.