Abigail Humphries

Students from at least 17 universities in the United Kingdom have staged sit-ins, as part of an unprecedented increase in British activism in support of the Palestinians. These university “occupations” have been launched to compel administrators to meet demands ranging from official condemnation of the Israeli action to establishing scholarships for Palestinian students to study in the UK.

Text messages came from student protestors who had managed to get inside the lecture hall. They let the their fellow demonstrators outside know that their chanting could be heard inside over the voice of Israeli President Shimon Peres. There was clapping and stamping of feet and placards banged on the railings to make as much noise as possible, along with the constant “Free, free Palestine” which did not stop for a moment of the hour-long lecture. Abigail Humphries reports from Oxford.