University students, activists in Ireland hold demonstrations in support of Palestine

Students from Trinity College in Ireland and activists held separate demonstrations Saturday in support of Palestine in the capital city of Dublin, Anadolu news agency reported.

At Trinity College, one of Ireland’s most prestigious universities, the protest was organised by pro-Palestinian students and they demanded that the school’s administration sever ties with Israel.

The students wrote slogans such as “Israel is a terrorist state”, “End the genocide”, “From the river to the sea” and “Free Palestine” on tents set up on campus.

Activists gathered in front of the Light Monument in the city, displaying Palestinian and Irish flags as they marched toward the school.

Protesters cheered slogans in support of the students outside the campus and displayed banners that read: “Free Palestine” and “Cut ties with Israel.”

“I think the significance of today is to give students the opportunity to speak about the rights of oppressed people, particularly those currently suffering genocide in Palestine,” Fintan Sheerin, an academic at the university, told Anadolu.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on Gaza since the 7 October Hamas incursion, which killed around 1,200 people.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

Tel Aviv, in comparison, has killed nearly 34,600 Palestinians and wounded 77,700 others amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities in the Palestinian Territory.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85 per cent of the enclave’s population into internal displacement besides a crippling blockade on food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which, in January, issued an interim ruling that ordered it to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

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