Students at Leuven University (KUL) in Flemish Brabant have been occupying one of the university’s buildings since the early hours of Monday morning. The students are protesting against the university's cooperation with academic institutions in Israel. Elsewhere, in Flanders students at Ghent and Antwerp universities are also protesting against their universities’ cooperation with Israel. In Wallonia students at Liège University are also protesting.
Around 70 students have been occupying College De Valck at University of Leuven’s Law Faculty since early on Monday morning. They arrived with tents and sleeping bags, which probable indicates that they expect to stay for some time. The students are demanding that Leuven University suspends cooperation with Israeli academic institutions for as long as the violence in Gaza continues.
One of the students involved in the protest Nils De Ridder told VRT News that "We set up a protest camp around the De Valck building in the morning to demand that KU Leuven terminate all cooperation agreements with Israel. For the time being, we will only protest here and not at other university buildings.
They intend to continue the protest until their demands are met, the students said. The police came by in the morning to check that there was nothing untoward.
Protest elsewhere
Students at other universities and colleges of higher education in Belgium are also protesting against cooperation with Israeli academic institutions. At the University of Ghent (UGent), a building was occupied for three days last week. Students from Ghent’s Artevelde College of Higher Education are now also taking part in the protests.
In Antwerp there have been demonstrations, and a "sit-in" has been taking place at Liège University (ULG) since Friday inside one of the University’s main buildings in Liège city centre.
Meanwhile, Brussels’ Dutch-medium free university VUB is currently reviewing its cooperation with Israel.
In addition to protests against the actions of Israel there was also a pro-Israeli demonstration.