Pro-Palestinian images projected on Cambridge University’s King’s College Chapel

Marking the 106th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Cambridge University students projected pro-Palestine images onto King’s College Chapel

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Students at Cambridge University projected pro-Palestine images onto King’s College Chapel to mark of the 106th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

On Thursday 2nd November at 8pm messages that included “IN GAZA DEATH CERTIFICATES ARE ISSUED BEFORE BIRTH CERTIFICATES” and “Not in Our names! Cambridge University Staff and Students Demand Ceasefire in Gaza” were projected onto the outside of the building.

The Balfour Declaration was a statement issued by the British foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour on 2nd November 1917, pledging support for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. The declaration has been viewed as a catalyst for the Nakba (catastrophe), which refers to the mass displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Marking the 106th anniversary of the declaration which ended up having catastrophic consequences on Palestinian people, and coinciding with the ongoing conflict in Israel and Gaza, Cambridge students have projected images onto King’s College Chapel in solidarity with Palestine.

The messages projected portray a variety of images and text, including the Palestinian flag, a mosaic display detailing the words “LET GAZA LIVE”, “ISRAEL IS COMMITTING GENOCIDE” and “BOYCOTT ISRAEL UNTIL IT ABIDES WITH INTERNATIONAL LAW!”

Israel has been carrying out a retaliatory campaign against Gaza following attacks on 7th October, and the conflict has sparked outrage among Cambridge students over the last few weeks.

On Friday 20th October, an open letter with close to 1,500 signatures from Cambridge students and staff demanded that Cambridge “sever financial ties with Israel.”

King’s College and the University of Cambridge have been contacted for comment.

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