Over two hundred students walked out of lectures earlier today as part of a pro-Palestinian protest.

Students walked out of lectures and classes at Downing Site, Sidgwick Site, the Faculty of Education and West Hub as a part of a national strike for Palestine organised by the Stop the War Coalition.

Before the protest began, organisers of the event entered faculty libraries calling on students to “walk out now” and shouting “your University is complicit in genocide”.

Students were also joined by lecturers, non-teaching staff, and members of the Cambridge UCU. Among these was UCU Communications Director Anne Alexander, who accused the University of being “complicit in the destruction of universities all across Gaza through their funding of arms companies”.

During the protest a member of the English Faculty spoke about a motion for University divestment from arms that was submitted to Regent House, the University’s governing body, in August. They urged students to speak to members of Regent House and get them to vote for the motion later this term.

A speaker from Cambridge for Palestine (C4P) stated that the “University has shown no intention to do better for its students, including Palestinian ones, of their own accord. It is only through the unrelenting pressure that we’ve put on them”.

“As a student, I’m appalled that the University is willing to put profits over life. Our University still refuses to condemn the Israeli government,” they continued.

This action comes after the University agreed to review their investments in arms companies, following over a month of pressure from the C4P encampment.

The encampment was first set up outside King’s College by C4P in May, calling on the University to disclose its holdings in companies associated with Israel, and to subsequently divest from them.

A representative from Cambridge Jews for Justice told Varsity: “We’re here staging a student walkout of lectures because the University is still, despite many efforts, complicit in the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians and we want to put pressure on them to make divestment happen and show them that normal life does not go on during a genocide”.

“We have really great Faculty support across different departments, and that is also part of our efforts to put pressure on the investors to divest because this is not just a student movement […] It’s a massive movement and we need to be heard,” they continued.

Students also displayed banners accusing Prime Minister Keir Starmer of being a war criminal, with one speaker claiming “I don’t believe one word Keir Starmer has to say about a humanitarian ceasefire”.

This comes after Starmer refused to consider suspending all arms sales to Israel in a Parliamentary debate on Monday (07/10), following the government’s decision to suspend 30 arms export licences to Israel last month.

The University of Cambridge and Keir Starmer have been contacted for comment