Lebanese students stage rare anti-Israel protest

Hundreds of students gathered at university campuses in Lebanon on Tuesday to protest against Israel, Reuters has reported. These were the country’s first coordinated university protests over the Israeli offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza, which participants said were inspired by sit-ins by students in the United States.

Students, alumni and other Lebanese citizens gathered at campuses in the capital Beirut and elsewhere, waving Palestinian flags and carrying placards demanding their universities to boycott companies that do business in Israel.

Rayyan Kilani, 21, who is graduating this semester from the 150-year-old American University of Beirut (AUB), said that students had decided it was worth risking their degrees to show support for the Palestinian cause.

“Looking at the Palestinians in Gaza and students in Gaza who lost their universities, their lives and their families, a degree would not matter to us as much as a liberated Palestine from the river to the sea,” she said. “Of course, we were inspired by the protests in the US, and Columbia University specifically.”

Pro-Palestine demonstrations across the Arab world have tended to be muted. Lebanon, though, has seen some demonstrations organised by Palestinian factions and the allied Lebanese Hezbollah movement.

At the AUB, around 200 people gathered in a campus square where they had been given approval by the administration to protest for two hours. Campus security barred protesters or journalists from venturing further into the university grounds and shepherded reporters off campus as the allotted window to demonstrate closed.

“We want to show to show the whole world that we have not forgotten the Palestinian cause and that the young generation – which is aware and cultured – is still with the Palestinian cause,” said 19-year-old Ali al-Muslem.

Elsewhere in the Arab world, activists called off a planned sit-in on Tuesday at Jordan University in Amman, the country’s main campus, although a rally was planned later on Tuesday near the Israeli Embassy.

On Monday, hundreds of students demonstrated in Tunisian universities and streets of the capital in support of the Palestinian people, while dozens rallied outside the French Embassy and near the municipal theatre.

READ: Paris council suspends funding for elite university after pro-Palestine demonstrations