Pro-Palestinian student protesters in Australia call for divestment from Israel

Pro-Palestinian student protesters in Australia on Monday called for divestment from Israel.

A petition, demanding "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions," was launched by students at the University of Sydney (USyd) which has seen pro-Palestinian encampments for many days.

Seeking a meeting with the university officials, the USyd Students for Palestine, said: "We ... demand that Sydney University disclose all of their ties with Israel, divest from those ties, and sign on to the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions statement."

The students particularly expressed their opposition to "the partnerships our university holds with weapons companies known to be part of the Israeli military's supply chain, including Thales and Lockheed Martin."

"We are peace activists. We firmly believe that universities should be institutions of education and learning, and should not have any connection to the weapons industry that brings death and destruction to our world," it said.

Emphasizing that they refuse all kinds of "racism and discrimination including Islamophobia, antisemitism, sexism and homophobia," it said: "Opposition to the state of Israel and to Zionism as an ideology is not antisemitism. Many of the student leaders of our protests are Jewish. We stand alongside Jewish people against discrimination, and we see ourselves as standing on the shoulders of a long line of Jewish pro-Palestine and anti-war activists."

The petition was launched after Sydney and Melbourne on Sunday witnessed pro-Palestine demonstrations, with protesters chanting "hands off Rafah" in protest against Israel's invasion of the southern city of the Gaza Strip, according to the local The Australian newspaper.

More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 76,600 others injured in a brutal Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip since an attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year that killed nearly 1,200 people.

More than seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

In an interim ruling in January, The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) said it is "plausible" that Tel Aviv is committing genocide in Gaza, ordering it to stop such acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in the enclave.

South Africa on Friday asked the ICJ to order Israel to withdraw from the southern Gaza city of Rafah as part of additional emergency measures over the war.