Students who oppose the war in Gaza began dismantling their protest camp at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland on Wednesday evening, after the institution agreed to divest from three Israeli companies listed by the United Nations for their links to settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Trinity said that it would move to divest as soon as next month, and that its endowment fund would also seek to divest from investments in other Israeli companies in the future.
“We fully understand the driving force behind the encampment on our campus, and we are in solidarity with the students in our horror of what is happening in Gaza,” the college said in a statement released on Wednesday evening.
“We abhor and condemn all violence and war, including the atrocities of October 7th, the taking of hostages and the continuing ferocious and disproportionate onslaught in Gaza,” it added. “The humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the dehumanisation of its people is obscene.”
The statement was approved by the college’s board.
Trinity’s protest, which began five days ago and had remained peaceful, was organized by the student union and its branch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or B.D.S., movement. The demonstration emerged as students across Europe staged pro-Palestinian sit-ins and protests against antisemitism at other universities on the continent, taking a similar approach to their counterparts in the United States.
Jenny Maguire, the incoming president of Trinity’s student union, contrasted the calm atmosphere in the college’s Fellow’s Square, where students were already taking down flags and tents in anticipation of the statement’s release, to the violence at some U.S. universities, where police were deployed to clear some occupied buildings amid antiwar protests.
