Student groups across several American universities have launched a coordinated hunger strike in solidarity with the people of Gaza, who are facing severe food shortages due to the Israeli regime’s genocidal policies.
The student-led initiative also aims to draw attention to the Donald Trump administration’s targeting of pro-Palestinian students advocating for human rights.
Students from Yale University and four California State universities—Long Beach, San Jose State, Sacramento State, and San Francisco State—have joined forces in a coordinated hunger strike.
The students also demand complete divestment from companies complicit in the Israeli regime’s genocidal actions, the severing of university ties with Israeli institutions, and the protection of free speech on campus.
At Yale, six Yalies4Palestine members, which include five undergraduates and one recent alum, aim to continue the hunger strike until the university meets its demands.
Their demands include divesting from weapons suppliers, not punishing student protesters, and ending partnerships that fund students to travel to the Palestinian land occupied by the Israeli forces.
The students said they would only consume water until Yale concedes to their list of demands.
“Children and families are starving, so we’re in solidarity with Gaza, as well as students across the country that are hunger striking,” a hunger striker told the News on behalf of the group.
The hunger strikers told local media that they began their protest in solidarity with a group of 25 students from California State Universities, who began their hunger strike on May 5.
Yale University spokesperson Karen Peart said the university is “concerned for our students’ health and wellbeing” and “deeply committed to upholding the right to free expression.”
She pointed out that participating in a hunger strike as a form of peaceful protest does not violate University policy.
Elsewhere, in the Netherlands, students have set up an encampment at Utrecht University to demand the school divest from Israeli institutions. They’ve named their encampment after slain Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat.
This comes as the Trump administration continues with its crackdown on pro-Palestine activism. Thousands of foreign students were also targeted for deportation over minor offenses and arrests.
Since October 2023, the Israeli killing machine has killed at least 52,800 Gazans.
It launched its genocidal war on Gaza and imposed a complete siege after Hamas carried out retaliatory Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in response to the Zionist regime forces’ intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
Last January, the Israeli regime was forced to agree to a ceasefire deal with Hamas, given the regime’s failure to achieve any of its objectives, including the “elimination” of the Palestinian resistance movement or the release of captives.
However, Israel cut off food medical supplies, and other aid to the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip on March 2, just two weeks before breaking the two-month ceasefire with Hamas.
Just over the past 24 hours, 100 people have been killed as US-made Israeli bombs, missiles and drones fell on homes, businesses, apartment buildings, and tents housing displaced Palestinians.