UCC students stage walk-out from classes over conflict in Palestine

APPROXIMATELY 300 University College Cork students staged a pro-Palestine walk-out from classes on Monday morning, gathering in the amphitheatre outside the Honan Chapel to hear speakers call for the university to “break its silence” on the war in Gaza.

The walk-out was staged by members of the UCC Students’ union and the UCC Socialist Society. Hayley O’Connell Vaughan, UCC Students’ Union communication and engagement officer, said the event had been intended as an escalation of earlier pro-Palestine initiatives held on the campus.

Ms O’Connell Vaughan said the objective of the walk-out was to increase public pressure on UCC.

“The university was very quick to jump to Ukraine’s defence, and to [support] Ukrainian students, making a full statement on the invasion of Ukraine, which they should.

“University College Cork is a university of sanctuary and it is our belief that it has done nothing to support its Palestinian students or students affected by the genocide in Gaza, and by its silence, it is complicit,” Ms O’Connell Vaughan said.

A spokesperson for the university told The Echo: “UCC acknowledges the deeply distressing situation in Gaza. The events of October 7 in Israel and the ongoing crisis in Gaza are utterly heart-breaking and abhorrent.

“Our hope is for a peaceful resolution to the current conflict. UCC recently welcomed the Palestinian Ambassador to campus to discuss areas of mutual co-operation.”

Meanwhile, Brian McCarthy, Solidarity Party – People Before Profit councillor for the Cork City North-West ward, said there was a moral imperative on Irish politicians to cancel their upcoming visit to the White House in protest at the US administration’s support of Israel.

“They arm Israel, they fund Israel, they shield Israel in the United Nations, and the only reason Israel is able to continue this genocide is because of the US supporting them,” Mr McCarthy said.

In the five months since Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people in a co-ordinated series of attacks in southern Israel on October 7, Gaza has been under almost constant bombardment from the Israeli Defence Forces.

Over 31,000 people have been killed in Gaza, with around 80% of the Palestinian enclave’s 2.3m people crammed into increasingly small areas in an effort to find safety.

With the IDF destroying food supplies and severely restricting the flow of aid to Gaza, malnutrition is now widespread on the Gaza Strip, and the United Nations has warned that one quarter of Gaza’s population is facing famine.

A petition calling on UCC to, among other things, initiate a review of all academic links between UCC and Israeli academic and industrial institutions, had, as of Monday morning, gathered signatures from 438 staff members and over 800 students.