Students at UCC stage walkout for ceasefire in Gaza

Approximately 1,500 signatures, including more than 1,000 from UCC students, have been added to the UCC Staff and Student Statement on Gaza

This morning at 11.30am, UCC students and staff staged a walkout from lectures, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Students at University College Cork (UCC) today staged a walkout for Palestine, as part of a campaign urging the university to make a public statement in support of a ceasefire in Gaza.

At 11.30am, students walked out of class and gathered at the amphitheatre on the campus, with speeches imploring UCC to take action.

Almost 1,500 signatures have been added to the UCC Staff and Student Statement on Gaza, including more than 1,000 students.

“Staff and students in UCC are no longer going to stand for the silence of the university,” a statement said.

“There is no room for neutrality when a genocide is happening right in front of our eyes.” 

More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza as part of Israel’s retaliation to the October 7 attacks by Hamas. Calls for a ceasefire in recent weeks have so far failed.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has been urged to use the opportunity of his meeting with US President Joe Biden in the coming days to press calls for a ceasefire.

As well as these calls, students and staff at UCC are calling for a review of links to “complicit Israeli institutions”.

Last month, third-level institutions were urged to "take a stand" and reconsider involvement in multi-million euro research projects with Israel.

During the walkout, students called for the university to make a public statement calling for a ceasefire and to review links with complicit Israeli institutions.

UCC has been involved in eight projects that Israeli entities have also taken part in, including a €33m health project with the Israeli ministry of health and another €20.9m project with the Weizmann Institute of Science.

The signatories to the statement from staff and student call on UCC to comment publicly, to add its voice to the push for a ceasefire.

It also calls for unhindered access of aid to and throughout Gaza, as the crisis there worsens.

The statement from staff and students adds: “We unreservedly condemn the targeting of all civilians and advocate for an immediate ceasefire and a clear path to the vindication of the national and human rights of all the inhabitants of the region.

“Time is running out for those in Palestine, let us add our voice now to demonstrate our compassion and solidarity. We are already late, and soon it will be too late to be on the right side of history.”

This action at UCC mirrors the weekly action being taken in Cork city by the Cork Palestine Solidarity Campaign. At its latest event on Saturday, demonstrators carried a variety of placards calling on the  Government to cancel the St Patrick’s Day visit to Washington DC.