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It is with indescribable horror and pain that we write these words over one year since the beginning of the escalated genocide in Gaza. This is the deadliest year for Palestinians in their 76 year long struggle for justice, liberation and dignity. In its barbaric and relentless onslaught, israel has inflicted unspeakable horrors that impossibly worsen by the day on the people of Gaza. Nowhere is safe within the Strip, a reality that israel has proven time and time again in its bombardment of areas it has prescribed as ‘safe zones.’ At the time of writing, at least 51,802 Palestinians have been murdered by israel, at least 10,000 of which are missing or buried under the rubble and 16,756 of which are children. These are direct deaths only. As perpetrators of genocide do, israel has targeted every source of life, with its destruction of healthcare, food systems and infrastructure making the total death toll at least 155,406. This means that by conservative estimates, at the very least 6.7% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million has been wiped out.

No fabric of life has been spared by israel - hospitals, schools, universities, refugee camps, mosques, churches, heritage sites, cemeteries, and hundreds of thousands of homes have all been targeted and obliterated. israel’s destruction of hospitals and targeting of doctors and medical personnel in addition to its blockade of Gaza, which it has imposed for the last 17 years, mean that Palestinians in critical, life-threatening conditions have nowhere to seek treatment. israel has additionally used starvation as a weapon of war, with 96% of the population of Gaza facing acute food insecurity and countless people (including children and newborn babies) dying of malnutrition and dehydration as a result of the lack of essential food supplies and basic aid. Journalists and humanitarian aid workers have also been deliberate israeli targets, in spite of exceedingly clear identification. More journalists and health workers have been killed by israel than any other aggressor in recorded history. 

More than 10,000 Palestinians are being held in israeli prisons and torture facilities under grave conditions, where they are subject to sexual violence and rape. Palestinian bodies are violated even in death. More than 140 mass graves and random cemeteries have been documented across Gaza, with israel repeatedly digging up and abducting buried corposes. In recent months, israel has brought hundreds of these bodies back to Gaza in containter trucks, many of them badly decomposed and unidentified. In addition, these bodies bear signs of torture, field executions and being buried alive. 

UNICEF has called Gaza a graveyard for children as israel's bombs mercilessly incinerate, mutilate and traumatise, and famine, malnutrition and diseases like polio spread. Tens of thousands of children in Gaza have either been separated from their families or registered as ‘WCNSF’ – a shockingly disturbing acronym which stands for ‘wounded child, no surviving family.’ Children now have their names written on their limbs in the hopes of being identified in the likely event of being injured beyond recognition or killed – and even then this is not guaranteed as thousands of children have lost their limbs (at least 1,000, according to UNICEF, have lost one or both legs). We are ill-equipped to deal with the new depths of generational trauma that are being inflicted from which Palestinian children and adults alike will suffer long after the genocide.

We refuse to carry on with business as usual while Palestinians continue to be murdered on an hourly basis.

The list of war crimes committed by israel is endless and has not been confined to Gaza. The West Bank has witnessed its deadliest year ever of violence at the hands of israeli forces and illegal settlers. Whole swathes of land have been violently seized and annexed by israel forcibly displacing Palestinian communities that have lived there for centuries. Illegal settler violence occurs with the full backing and support of the israeli military – which itself often conducts raids on villages, towns and refugee camps – and frequently results in the murder and abduction of Palestinians, including children. In Lebanon, israel continues to indiscriminately bomb civilians, killing over 2,000 and displacing over a million so far. Entire apartment blocks in Lebanese cities have been razed to the ground as tonnes of explosives are dropped daily.

Despite the unprecedented scale of atrocities committed by israel, our government and others in the West continue to turn a blind eye to their own historical complicity while actively funding and abetting these atrocities. 

UK universities collectively invest nearly £430 million in companies complicit in israeli violations of international law. The value of the University of Cambridge's current partnerships with the defence industry stands at over £46 million. Just three of the University's colleges alone - King's, John’s, and Trinity - together invest at least £21,000,000 in companies complicit in israel's genocide of the Palestinian people. The Cambridge Service Alliance, founded by BAE Systems, IBM, and the University’s Institute for Manufacturing and Judge Business School, allows the University to work directly with complicit companies. Through academic and exchange programmes, the University maintains a close relationship with israeli institutions.

The wealth and prestige of the University of Cambridge stems directly from its role in the British empire and its disastrous colonial legacies, including the Cambridge and Oxford men who authored the Balfour declaration in 1917, ceding Palestinian land to the Zionist project.

The University's initial responses gaslighted and ignored Palestinian students. Escalation by the student encampment, open letters signed by the staff, and community mobilisation led to recent responses to some of our demands. However, even as we meet the horrifying landmark of one year of an escalated genocide, the University has failed to enact a comprehensive disclosure of and divestment from its ties to complicit institutions. It has refused to use the word 'genocide' or to reference israel's war crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations of international law, despite rulings and evaluations by international organisations. In its silence, the University continues to normalise the displacement and systematic killing of the Palestinian people which has been ongoing for over a century. Moreover, this silence and complicity have exposed a glaring hypocrisy in the University as an academic institution that claims to stand for global education and research: 85% of all educational infrastructure including every single university in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed and will require significant reconstruction. 88,000 university students have had their education discontinued, and at least 520 school and university teachers have been killed.

We reaffirm the right of Palestinians to resist their colonisers and occupiers, and return to the land of their ancestors. The student intifada, learning from a year of resistance within Gaza, has strengthened its roots despite repression. From Cambridge to Gaza, we will not stop, we will not rest, until Palestine is free from the river to the sea.

Today is day 291 of the genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza. For over nine months, israel has relentlessly destroyed life in Gaza, killing Palestinian men, women, and children and systematically attacking vital institutions and infrastructure. There is no count to the numbers of grieving mothers, grieving fathers, and grieving children. Grandparents who survived the Nakba have been forcibly displaced by israel once again. Gaza is now home to the largest population of child amputees. Forced starvation and malnutrition have taken hold across the besieged enclave. In its systematic erasure of Palestinian education and Palestinian culture, israel has murdered Palestinian educators and intellectuals, damaged and destroyed Palestinian schools and universities, and burned down Palestinian libraries, archives, and cultural centres.

UK universities collectively invest nearly £430 million in companies complicit in israeli violations of international law, following on from over a century of British complicity in the zionist project. At Cambridge, this historical complicity dates back at least to Arthur Balfour, the former Chancellor whose declaration in 1917 laid the groundwork for the zionist colonial project in Palestine. We refuse to be silent bystanders in the face of British universities’ complicity in the ongoing genocide.

While the long path to liberation is led by Palestinians, we are committed to doing our part in the struggle. For over two months now, the Cambridge Encampment for Palestine has demanded disclosure, divestment, reinvestment, and protection. We stand in unwavering solidarity with Palestine. We also stand in solidarity with comrades in fellow encampments who have faced violent repression from universities, from enclosure and eviction to mass arrests. We are outraged at this continuous use of force, this disrespect for the right to protest, and this refusal to take responsibilities from the higher education sector. Despite this repression, direct action has been proven to work. Cardiff University has agreed to full disclosure and the release of the University’s investment portfolio in response to their encampment, proving that disclosure is possible for UK universities.

The University of Cambridge's response at the beginning of this genocide resembled many other universities' in failing to recognise and support its Palestinian students. As a result of our actions, the University has finally engaged with us by entering into a negotiation process. On 23 July 2024, the University released a statement of commitments following more than two months of discussions between camp representatives and senior management. Our representatives are ready to engage in these processes, described further below. The University's current commitments remain insufficient, but this is a long-overdue step toward building an academic institution that has no ties to genocide. This engagement from an educational institution sets a necessary precedent during a scholasticide.

Our actions, which follow in the footsteps of a long and rich history of grassroots organising in Cambridge, have won the creation of a university working group on Palestine. This will include an unprecedented student-led task force, nominated by the encampment, which will engage with the University to make sure that the following commitments are enacted:

DISCLOSE & DIVEST:

- To build the infrastructure for disclosure and accountability, the working group will develop and propose to the administration a definition for the arms and "defence" industry. This will allow the University to rigorously assess any complicity in the genocide through its current investments and will open the door to disclosing aggregate investments in the arms industry.

- The working group will review the Cambridge University Endowment Fund's (CUEF) "Responsible Investment Principles". Suggested amendments will be shared with the CUEF Trustee Board through university governance bodies.

- The working group will review and amend the University's "ethical policy" on academic and research partnerships.

- ​These processes will not end until all parties are satisfied. As such, these processes will not end until full disclosure of any investments in genocide-enabling companies and institutions, and divestment from such investments is achieved.

REINVEST & PROTECT:

- University-wide advocacy for Palestine led to the establishment of a new Humanitarian Response Fund (HRF) to support students from conflict zones. Applications to the HRF have been open since 4 June 2024. Link here.

- The University has agreed to the camp’s demand for the establishment of multiple funding schemes for Palestinian students and scholars, including clinical placements for medical students, and an expansion in its support for the Council for at-Risk Academics’ fellowship programme. The task force will work to ensure that funding for these initiatives continues to grow.

- The task force will continue to negotiate on other key demands, including abolishing participation in the Prevent framework and establishing a review into the university's adoption and application of the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

These initiatives are a first step, but make no mistake: they are not enough. We remain dissatisfied with the University’s failure to promptly execute a comprehensive disclosure and divestment effort and its refusal to reference war crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations of international humanitarian and human rights law (as reported by Al Mezan, Human Rights Watch, UN experts, and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry). We are appalled at the University's refusal to use the word 'genocide' anywhere in the statement, when it has been repeatedly established as such by entities including the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Our movement is stronger than ever, and we are committed to continuing our efforts to ensure that the University upholds its promises with the urgency and sincerity that genocide warrants. We are steadfast in our resolve and will persist in mobilising for the cause.

In the next three weeks we will move towards a new phase of Cambridge for Palestine organising. This will include closing camp on King's Parade, working on the Concrete Camp project (a permanent physical space for Palestinian liberation organising in Cambridge), finalising the task force, organising a negotiations handover, and setting a first meeting-date for the working group.

In this phase, we are building a Cambridge For Palestine coalition, a conglomerate of local Palestine-focused and ally organisations. Camp remains open for community members, community organisers, students from other encampments, and those already embedded in, or new to, the movement for Palestine Liberation.

What we have accomplished at the encampment goes far beyond the progress we have made in negotiations. We have materialised a space few thought possible in Cambridge: a space where we have learned from and built on existing initiatives for Palestine solidarity and mutual aid, in which the institutional walls dividing our community have been challenged, and where solidarity and hope for liberation have been woven into the fabric of this city.

Each day at the encampment we have held space to mourn the ongoing destruction of life, and grieve that we live in a world where our protest is necessary. Every square inch of every encampment around the globe is land liberated for Palestine, and though these spaces are transient, we are resilient and ready to return.

Free Palestine.

Read the University's statement here.