Pro-Palestine students call for food so they can continue University College London protest

Chosen by us to get you up to speed at a glance
Students who have set up pro-Palestine camps at UK universities are pleading for food and blankets.
In an echo of a Columbia University student in New York widely mocked for demanding “basic humanitarian aid”, British students have requested “food for community dinners” as well as mats, tents, blankets and “sources of light”.
Temporary encampments occupying campuses have begun springing up across the UK. It comes in the wake of unrest across US universities that has led to violent clashes with police and hundreds of arrests.
The British protests against the war in Gaza are currently much lower-key. A new site sprang up at University College London (UCL) overnight on Thursday. Other universities with tent protests include Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield, Warwick, Swansea, Bristol and Goldsmiths, University of London.
They are also demanding donations of food and hygiene products so they can continue camping out. Storms and downpours over recent days have led to requests for extra gear to stay warm and dry.
On Instagram, a pro-Palestinian group called Newcastle Apartheid posted a request for urgent help, stopping short of calling it humanitarian aid.
Headed “urgent callout list please circulate”, the group said it needed “blankets, food for community dinner (please dm so we know how much to expect), sources of light, mats, tents.” The group added: “We have A LOT of water, period products, bread”, in an indication of what not to send.
In another post, the group said: “Please get us blankets, hot water bottles and groundsheets. We are cold.”
Protestors at UCL also called on the public to donate “nutritious and healthy” food to their group. Junayd Islam, a 20-year-old third-year student at the university, who is acting as the spokesman for the activists, said: “We are open for donations. If people can donate sanitary things, torches and food – anything healthy and nutritious. Some people have already given us food and other things.”
Mr Islam added: “I’m a little bit cold and wet and I know going through that pain brings me a little bit closer to what is going on in Palestine.”
The protestors at UCL called the university a “disgrace” for its stance on the war in Gaza. One masked student said their demonstration was inspired by the action being taken at US universities.
Two UCL students holding up their fists and posing for a photo chanted: “In our hundreds, in our millions, we are all Palestinian.”
A 20-year-old first-year student protester told The Telegraph: “We are following in the footsteps of students around the world in asking for our university to divest the millions of pounds it has in companies that supply arms to Israel.
“It’s disgraceful that the university is invested in these companies.
“We have three demands of our university. The first is that we are asking the university not to pick sides. They shouldn’t pick sides and shouldn’t be investing in Israel.
“Secondly, we are asking the university to condemn the active genocide taking place just just like it has condemned all previous genocides including the apartheid in South Africa.
“And thirdly we are asking the university to re-establish the educational system in Gaza. That’s it. These are our demands.”
Another 20-year-old third-year student, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: “We are a coalition of students taking inspiration from the action in America. We are taking a stand to say enough is enough.”
He added: “We are calling for the university to divest completely from companies complicit in genocide.
“So far we have heard nothing from the university but we will continue our protest for as long as it takes for them to meet our demands.”
The student protestor said 10 of them had slept in the tents pitched on campus on Thursday night, with as many as 30 activists present during the day.
At 2pm, the student protestors started simultaneously praying as part of a “Friday prayer”. Friday prayer is a community prayer held once a week in the Muslim faith. All facing east, towards Mecca, they were being led by an Imam at the front of the group who was reading from the Koran.
After the prayer, they rose to their feet and broke off into small groups to talk.
 
A government source told The Telegraph that ministers were monitoring the situation closely, amid concerns over campus security and fears that outsiders could infiltrate groups and agitate, turning the peaceful protests violent. Authorities are also looking closely at evidence of anti-Semitism.
The source said incidents were being closely looked at and universities reminded to take appropriate action where necessary, such as requesting police investigate allegations of anti-Semitism and ensure disciplinary action was taken where necessary.
Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, recently wrote to all university vice-chancellors reminding them of how to work with Prevent, the government body that tackles extremism.
A UCL spokesperson said: “Like many other universities, a small protest with tents is taking place in our quad. We are speaking with the organisers and carefully monitoring the situation.
“We will manage this in line with our legal duty and commitment to promote freedom of speech within the law, whilst ensuring the safety and security of our community and enabling our education and research activity to continue.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said those taking part in the protests were “ignorant, entitled young adults” and that campuses had “become venues for the glorification of anti-Semitic terrorism”.
“For all their virtuous rhetoric of zero-tolerance and anti-racism, British universities have become epicentres of Jew-hatred, where Jewish students are abused, Jewish societies are trolled and Jewish institutions are vandalised,” the spokesperson said. “Campuses have become venues for the glorification of anti-Semitic terrorism and support for groups opposed to Britain and our values.
“Now, it appears that students on British campuses have stooped to a new low, taking inspiration from the horrendous intimidatory acts that we are seeing oversees on campuses in the United States, where anti-Semitic activists have sought to bar Jewish students and faculty from university premises. It is reminiscent of humanity’s darkest hours, but it is happening right now.
“Pleas by activists in these ugly encampments in the UK for deliveries of supposed ‘humanitarian aid’ exposes them as the same sort of ignorant, entitled young adults as their peers in America. These dangerous antics cannot be allowed to escalate and lead to further ostracism of Jewish students.
“Anti-Semitism has no place on campus. We will always do everything we can to support Jewish students and hold perpetrators, and the institutions that shield them, to account.”
A Metropolitan Police Territorial Support Group van arrived at UCL at midday on Friday. Three uniformed officers exited the vehicle and entered the university campus. One briefly approached the encampment but then walked away. Five minutes later, the officers returned to their van and drove off.
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: “Once things kicked off in the US, it was inevitable that it would happen on UK campuses where students are also socially active.
“However, it’s not been as dramatic as the US, and that partly reflects views in society about universities. In the US they’re much more slap bang in the middle of the culture wars – much more than here. But university managers need to be very careful. In the US, it’s been an endless ramping up of tension.
“When police come on to campus and do the things they do in the US, it leaves a legacy that lasts for decades.”
Mr Hillman added: “There’s a role for vice-chancellors and also for religious leaders on campus, and it’s got to be dialogue. At the end of the day, Jewish students have an absolute right to be protected and treated exactly the same way as every other student and universities should be absolutely unequivocal about that.
“Universities should be big melting pots where everyone is treated absolutely equally, but it needs monitoring very, very closely. It’s a tricky time for universities anyway because it’s exam time.”
Our reporter Alex Barton is at the scene.