Students from several London universities hold mass pro-Palestine walkout

Pro-Palestine societies from a range of London universities held a mass walkout in Central London on Tuesday (7th October).

Hundreds of students and members of the public marched from King’s College London’s Strand campus to Birkbeck University to mark two years of Israeli bombardment in Gaza.

The protests have been widely criticised, with prime minister Keir Starmer calling for students to refrain from protesting on the second anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7th attacks.

The march was flanked by a metres-long banner displaying the names of thousands of Palestinian children killed in the six months following the Hamas attacks. Other signs displayed messages including “Two years of genocide: silence=complicity” and “No peace on stolen land.”

Part of the banner displaying the names of Palestinian children killed in Gaza

On Monday, Keir said students should refrain from protesting on 7th October out of respect for the victims of the Hamas-led attacks two years ago, and the recent attack on a Manchester synagogue.

A UCL student attending the protest, who wished to remain anonymous, told The London Tab they believe the government’s critiques are misdirected.

They said: “This is not an antisemitic protest. There are Jewish people here, including the son of a holocaust survivor.

“We’re not celebrating what happened on the 7th of October; we’re demanding an end to everything that’s happened since then. The thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israel had nothing to do with Hamas or hostages, and nothing will ever justify what’s happened in Gaza over the last two years.”

Another attendee, who also wished to remain anonymous, added: “This protest isn’t the story; the story is the innocent Palestinians being killed and our government and unis being complicit.”

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Organisers of the march included ex-SOAS student Haya Adam, who was expelled two years into her law degree for alleged harassment of SU staff. Haya refutes the allegations, claiming she was expelled to intimidate other student activists after her involvement in pro-Palestinian activism as head of the university’s Palestine society.

SOAS was also accused of dismissing student activists Abel Harvie-Clark and Alexander Cachinero Gorman from their paid roles in the student union due to disciplinary proceedings regarding their activism, but said at the time that it has never “expelled or disciplined students for pro-Palestinian views or protests.”

Speaking to the crowd, Haya called for London universities to stop investing in companies tied to Israel’s actions in Gaza, saying: “We will not be intimidated by the state or its oppression, because we are the majority and we will win.”

Further controversy was stirred ahead of the protests when Keir Starmer described them as “un-British”. Writing in The Times, he said: “This is not who we are as a country. It’s un-British to have so little respect for others. And that’s before some of them decide to start chanting hatred towards Jewish people all over again.

“This weekend the home secretary confirmed that we will legislate to give the police new powers to act against repeat protests, considering their cumulative impact. We will not stop people’s right to protest but we must ensure that they do not keep breeding hate and division.”

The “new powers” involve authorising police forces to impose restrictions on protests considered to be part of “cumulative disruption”. This refers to ongoing planned activities rather than one-off protests.

The move follows a series of mass arrests at protests in support of the proscribed group Palestine Action.

Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC, home secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “It’s important that we make this change so that the right balance can be struck between allowing people the freedom to protest, which is an ancient freedom in this country, but balancing that against the rights of the wider community to be able to go about their business.

“Just because you have a freedom, that doesn’t mean that you have to use it at every moment of every day.”

Despite the home secretary’s insistence that the new measures do not infringe on the right to protest, they have been widely criticised as a restriction on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

The Home Office, SOAS, King’s College London and Birkbeck, University of London have not yet responded to requests for comment.