Mexican students set up camp in support of pro-Palestinian protests

MEXICO CITY

Students from the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the largest public university campus in the country, set up an encampment in defense of Palestinians and in support of US college students camping to denounce Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The Inter-University and Popular Assembly in Solidarity with the People of Palestine, formed by Mexican students, academics and workers, approved the installation of an encampment on April 30 in solidarity with Palestine in front of the Rectory Building of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, starting May 2.

The Academics with Palestine Against Genocide collective, while condemning the violence against students in the US and Europe, upheld the initiative of Mexican students and its objective to exert pressure to break academic, political, sports and economic relations with Israel.

UNAM issued a statement expressing support for the encampment and demanding "respect" from demonstrators.

The university will be respectful of students' expressions of protest as long as they are conducted within the limits of respect for the rights of other members of the community, it said.

The students have urged the government to break ties with Israel and criticized the close relationship between the two governments in trade, intelligence and defense.

In 2000, Mexico and Israel signed a free trade agreement. According to Mexican government data, trade between the two countries has since grown 157.8%, making Israel the leading trading partner of Mexico in the Middle East, responsible for 45.2% of trade in the region.

Moreover, Israel has supplied Mexico with military equipment in the last 30 years, including weaponry, drones and the infamous espionage malware Pegasus, which the Mexican army has been reported to use against journalists and human rights defenders in recent years.

Israel has waged an unrelenting onslaught on the Palestinian enclave following an Oct. 7 cross-border attack led by Hamas, which killed less than 1,200 people.

At least 34,622 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, the vast majority being women and children, and 77,867 others have been injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The Israeli onslaught on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.