The Catalan Public Universities reject the total assault and the blockade of humanitarian aid that the State of Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip, denounce the situation created by decades of occupation of Palestinian territories and support the Israeli and Palestinian academic community

“Since the last of the ACUP’s communications in the first days of the conflict, at public universities in Catalonia we are witnessing, a month later and with great affliction, the humanitarian tragedy that the conflict has caused. Our limit, as universities involved in creating and transferring knowledge, is the violation of human rights in any situation.

In the face of these extremely serious events, we wish to state that:

• We reject the total assault and the blockade of humanitarian aid that the State of Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip, a criminal act against the Palestinian people that has caused a humanitarian catastrophe. This is why we stand by international demands for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Hamas’s terrorist acts cannot in any way justify later crimes by the State of Israel.
• We condemn the attacks perpetrated by the Hamas organisation on 7 October against Israeli civilians, which include murder, mutilation and the taking of hostages. We demand the immediate release of the hostages and believe that the perpetrators of these attacks must be prosecuted and tried by a competent court.
• We support the United Nations, which has insistently called for compliance with international law by all actors in the conflict, for the conflict’s peaceful resolution and for the promotion of peace agreements.
• We denounce the situation created by decades of occupation of Palestinian territories, with thousands of civilians killed and many more injured, and the terrible blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has led Palestine and its people to an unsustainable and desperate situation. In the last few weeks, the attacks on Palestinians have reached civil targets such as hospitals and schools, and the only university in Gaza has been destroyed.
• We call on the international community, and especially the member states of the European Union, to make use of their capacity for diplomacy and their international influence so that the parties involved in the conflict stop violating international humanitarian law.
• We reject antisemitism and Islamophobia in all their forms and in all contexts.
• We support the Israeli and Palestinian academic community with the conviction that universities and science in general are a space for peace, cooperation and diversity that is incompatible with war or terrorism. We place our institutions at its service in order to contribute, as far as possible, to alleviating the cruel effects of this brutality.”