Pro-Palestine students inspired by US campus protests set up tents on ... trends now
Scores of Pro-Palestine students have gathered in protest on university lawns across Britain to take a stand against Israel's war in Gaza following violent demonstrations at campuses in the US.
Tents have been pitched outside university buildings by protestors who are calling on their universities to divest from Israel in response to its military operation in the Gaza Strip.
Students from the University of Manchester (UOM) have filled Brunswick Park with banners, plaques and Palestinian flags to call for the university to 'end it's partnership with systems which support Israel'.
One banner read: 'UOM blood on your hands', while another said: 'UOM supports Israeli Genocide.'
In Bristol, hand-painted banners were erected between tents, emblazoned with messages of defiance as students lobbied their university to cut ties with arms companies and back calls for a ceasefire as the war rages on in the Levant.
Large crowds have also been forming in Newcastle, as students say their protest will 'highlight the institution's investment strategy and its complicity in the Israeli military's war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank'.
Elsewhere, a number of students walked out of lectures at Sheffield University yesterday to take part in the demonstration and are refusing to leave until the universities meet their demands.
Leeds students also announced plans to camp 'indefinitely' outside their student union, occupying land opposite the building and pledging to remain until the university, in their view, is 'no longer complicit in the oppression of the Palestinian people'.
NEWCASTLE: People gather during a protest in support of Palestinians, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on May 1
SHEFFIELD: A number of students walked out lectures at Sheffield university yesterday to take part in their demonstration
MANCEHSTER: People have been seen chanting for the university to 'end it's partnership with systems which support Israel'
LOS ANGELES: UK students have been inspired by a similar demonstrations in America - which has now been crippled by violent clashes
One camp, at Warwick University, has been set up in the piazza for a week, while student activists elsewhere held marches and one-off protests.
Bristol students said they staged the action 'in protest of the university's complicity in Israel's genocide of Palestinians'.
The groups have called on their universities to divest from Israel in response to its military operation in the Gaza Strip.
This would mean selling off stock in Israeli companies or otherwise dropping financial ties.
The students have asked for supporters to donate food, drinks and hygiene products.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a UK-based organisation which claims to be the largest British group 'dedicated to securing Palestinian human rights', wrote on X: 'Today, students from Leeds, Newcastle, Bristol and Sheffield have joined Warwick - demanding that our universities stop investing in Israel's genocide!'
Images shared by the group showed large groups of students gathering on campuses, alongside tents and banners on prominent areas of the universities.
The protests follow violent clashes at campuses across the US, most prominently at Columbia University in New York.
MANCHESTER: The camp of students who are demanding the University Of Manchester to end it's partnership with systems which support Israel
MANCHESTER: One of the many banners seen at the demonstrations in Manchester
Violence also broke out at the University of California (UCLA), and more than 1,000 protesters have been arrested across the US.
Last night Jewish community leaders urged universities to shut down encampments over fears Jewish students may be 'harassed and excluded'.
Bristol University told The Bristol Tab they 'fully respect the rights of our students to peacefully protest
