Students at the University of Reading are maintaining an encampment accusing Israeli military forces of ‘committing a genocide’ in Gaza.

The latest flare up in the Israel-Palestine conflict has been ongoing since October last year, when fighters from the Islamic group Hamas invaded southern Israel killing approximately 1,200 people according to Israeli officials.

Regular and irregular Israeli military forces have killed approximately 36,600 people according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Students have set up an encampment in a square at the university’s Whiteknights campus with various demands for the education administration.

The encampment has been in place for around three weeks, with organisers in regular communications with university officials and the vice-chancellor professor Robert van der Noort.

Tea Southwell said: “I feel like I have a duty to do what I can to protest the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

“I think as a student the best thing I can do is to join a student movement, join an encampment, and helping manage this one is really great.

“I think we do have the opportunity to make a real difference at this encampment, we think that our demands are extremely reasonable and we’ve outlined very clearly how the university can achieve these demands, not just what our demands are.”

The protesters have four core demands:

  1. Condemn and acknowledge ‘war crimes’ committed by the Israeli army
  2. Divest from companies that are ‘openly complicit in genocide’
  3. Pledge to assist in providing scholarships for Palestinian students, similar to Ukrainian students
  4. Safeguard the freedom of speech of students and staff from prosecution, disciplinary action or hostility.

Tea continued: “If we can be one of the first encampments to really realise all of the demands I think that could mean well for the rest of the encampments across the country and more broadly across the world.”

Some of those demands have been met.

Professor Van DerNoort has agreed to double the university’s asylum seeker scholarship scheme to provide relief for Palestinians and other people fleeing war. 

The University has also committed to keeping the protesters safe, after initial tensions when signs produced by the protesters were physically removed by security staff.

One of those present admitted that police officers had attended on one occasion.

A student called Julie said: “They have taken down a lot of our signs.”

There have been concerns that the presence of the protest could make Jewish students feel uncomfortable.

Julie said: “We try our best to make everyone feel safe, we have complied to demands, if people have a problem with a sign we have taken it down, we have been very cooperative.

The protest has attracted a wide range of people, with the flags of Ireland, Norway, Kurdistan, the flags of various other nations and the Communist flag being flown alongside the Palestine flag.

You can follow the activities of the protest by searching ‘the University of Reading Encampment’ and Reading university Friends of Palestine on social media.