Students set up pro-Palestinian encampment protest at University of Toronto
TORONTO — Tents, banners and flags cropped up at the centre of the University of Toronto’s downtown campus Thursday as students set up an encampment to call on the institution to cut its ties with Israel over the ongoing war in Gaza.
The students said they breached a fence that had been installed around an area on campus known as King’s College Circle around 4 a.m. to establish their protest encampment in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
They said they were joining students at other universities in Canada and the United States in setting up encampments to call on their schools to disclose ties with the Israeli government and divest from Israeli companies.
“We’re planning to stay as long as we need to get our demands. What we’re doing here is basically nothing compared to what the people in Palestine are going through,” Mohammad Yassin, a fourth-year student with relatives in Gaza and a refugee camp in Lebanon, said at the encampment.