Oxford Palestine Feature Archive

Students across the country are holding occupations and sit ins in solidarity with Gaza. SOAS shut down a MOD exhibition on their campus whilst students at LSE declared victory after seven days when the university agreed to all of their demands.

They are followed by others at King's College,Essex, Warwick, Sussex , Birmingham and over 80 Oxford University students have occupied the historic Bodleian building to demand that the university releases a statement condemning the attack on Gaza and cancel the lecture series at Balliol College inaugurated by Israeli war criminal Shimon Peres. There are also early reports of occupations at Manchester Met, Newcastle, Leeds, Cambridge [Pics], Bradford, Queen Mary, Sheffield Hallam, Nottingham, Strathclyde and Manchester universities. Update Wed 28th: The occupations have started to bring in results as both Sussex and Bradfod students have declared "victory" [See Sussex and Bradford declarations] On the other hand, the Cambridge University occupation is under threat of eviction [more] Update Sun 1st Feb: Nottingham occupation violently evicted [more | video] Update 11th Feb: Golsmiths University and the University of East Anglia are occupied.

In Yorkshire, students have occupied a building at Leeds University whilst the Bradford AGM voted to give the university the weekend to comply with demands to support the Palestinians, or expect action on Monday. On Tuesday morning, around 80 students occupied the university boardroom. The students say they "are enraged and horrified by the unspeakable atrocities that have been committed by the Israeli military on the people of Palestine, and ... will not tolerate the complicity of ... institutions of education in this violence."

Regional features: Cambridge | Nottingham | Sheffield

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I knew Arafat had finally (officially at least) died when the 1st mosque call of Thursday morning didn't end. As usual it began around 4am but on Thursday it continued until 12 noon. Partly in denial and partial in early morning confusion I dragged myself out of bed as usual and began walking down to the main street. I passed Ream – my land lady. Ream didn’t offer her usual recognition. Her black figure walked passed quickly; she was in a hurry to mourn. The streets looked strange. They were filled only with an unusual atmosphere. The shop doors were all shut and firmly locked, hiding the usual colour and vibrancy of Beit Sahour, while turning the beautiful stone walls of the old city into a metal corridor...
-Extract of a diary from Bex Tyrer from Oxford, writing from Beit Sahour, Palestine)

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