University of Florence cuts ties with Israeli institutions

AhlulBayt News Agency: Five departments at the University of Florence have severed ties with academic institutions in Israel as part of what they described as the “academic boycott” of the Israeli regime.

In a move in line with the growing global campaign for Palestinian rights, and as part of the international academic boycott against Israel, on Sunday, five departments at the University of Florence officially severed their ties with academic institutions in Israel.

The Department of Computer Science and Mathematics has ended its collaboration with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, an institution with longstanding links to the Israeli military-industrial complex.

Ben-Gurion University is also known for hosting Nobel laureate Dan Shechtman, who supports Zionist academic networks.

The Departments of Agricultural Sciences, Engineering, and Technology have also suspended their partnerships with their Israeli counterparts under the same initiative.

The Department of Architecture has cut ties with Ariel University, which is located in an illegal settlement in the Occupied West Bank, further emphasizing the university’s rejection of institutions complicit in the occupation.

The boycott comes amid increasing international condemnation of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and its decades-long occupation of Palestinian lands.

Across the world, academic communities and students have intensified their demands for institutions to divest and boycott all entities complicit in apartheid and war crimes.

Academic institutions have come under significant pressure from professors and students to sever ties with Israeli entities that play direct or indirect roles in normalizing apartheid, research for military purposes, or sustaining the occupation.

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, inspired by the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, has gained renewed momentum globally amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, where as many as 59,000 Palestinians, most of whom are children and women, have been killed.

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