University community protests Israeli attack

On March 12, 2018, the Union of Employees and Professors at Birzeit University protested the intrusion of an undercover Israeli unit into the university’s campus on March 7, when they kidnapped 24-year-old Head of the Student Council Omar Kiswani.

Tens of university professors, employees, and students held up Palestinian flags and signs that condemned the attack against the university. “Birzeit University will always be a bastion of defiance and resistance,” one sign read; “Why Birzeit? Because it is the starting point of national action,” and “The intrusion into the university’s campus is a clear violation of all international laws and norms,” were written on other signs.

Head of the Union of Employees and Professors, Sameh Abu Awad, said that the attack will only make the university stronger and uphold its principles more intensely, adding: “Birzeit University’s stance against the Occupation and all forms of normalization provoked the Israeli Occupation into breaking into the campus. The Israeli Occupation forces could have arrested the student outside the campus, but they wanted, in vain, to undermine the university’s spirit.”