Students launch pro-Palestinian encampment at top French university

By Esra Taskin

PARIS (AA) - Students at ENS Paris set up an encampment Tuesday in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Some 40 students launched the encampment by pitching tents to protest Israel's ongoing offensive on the Gaza Strip and ENS's ties with Israeli institutions.

The encampment area was symbolically renamed in honor of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed this year in Israel's war on Gaza.

Rajab became trapped in her family car on Jan. 29 after it came under Israeli army fire in Gaza City and was found dead after nearly two weeks of uncertainty.

The protesters placed pro-Palestinian signs protesting Israel’s attacks and the university's cooperation with Israel.

Along with Palestinian flags, they also hung banners on the walls of ENS featuring the names of Palestinians who were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since Oct. 7 last year.

Arguing that their school has not even called for a cease-fire in the region so far, the protesting students demanded that ENS cut ties with Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.

Speaking to Anadolu, Gedeon, a protester, said the administration quickly took action when it came to Ukraine and launched specific programs for Ukrainian academics.

However, nothing similar has been done for Gaza academics, although "we witnessed a real educational genocide," added Gedeon.

Pro-Palestine campus protests have been persistent in the US since April 17, when students at Columbia University in New York launched an encampment in solidarity with Gaza and demanded that their school divest from Israel.

Demonstrations and sit-ins are also taking place on campuses across Europe, including the Netherlands and Switzerland, as part of a larger protest against Israel’s attacks on Gaza, which have killed more than 35,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 79,000 others, as well as destroying infrastructure and causing shortages of necessities in the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling ordered it to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.