ATU Friends of Palestine participate in Third Level ‘Campuses for Palestine’ National Day of Action

THE ATU Sligo Friends of Palestine came together with staff and students across the Island of Ireland for a unified day of action, ‘Third Level Campuses for Palestine’ on April 17.

Throughout this event members of the ATU community stood in solidarity with the devastated higher education system in Gaza.

ATU Friends of Palestine were proud to welcome the Palestinian Ambassador to Ireland Dr. Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid to address staff and students.

The Ambassador spoke with strength and eloquence of the atrocities perpetrated against the Palestinian people and offered shrewd insight into how Irish education institutes could offer support. This included the facilitation of online learning, an area that ATU has shown significant leadership on in recent years.

Following the Ambassador’s presentation, Dr. Salem Gharbia, Head of Environmental Science at ATU Sligo discussed his personal experiences, as a native of Gaza, with the students.

This session, facilitated by St. Angela’s economics lecturer Dr. Brian O’Boyle, was an essential opportunity for students to engage with the reality of life in Gaza.

In the afternoon a crowd gathered at the main reception for a vigil in remembrance of the estimated 356 academics and 5,479 students killed. During this poignant and reflective ceremony origami cranes bearing the names of academics who have been killed were distributed. In a sobering moment, Dr. Salem Gharbia selected several of the birds at random and reading those named, reflected “I know them”.

The names of the academics were then read aloud, and a minute silence was observed. Together the group read the famed poem by Dr. Refaat Alreer, If I Must Die, before the vigil concluded.

The final event of the day was a screening of the Palestinian film Foragers. Themes explored throughout the film including the importance of indigenous relationships to the land, as well as the climate impact of the genocide were explored through a thought-provoking follow-up discussion.

This day of action marks the beginning of a united response from groups across all third level institutions who stand in unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people and denounce the genocidal atrocities being perpetrated against them by Israel.