TUS academics, staff, students, and graduates call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza

Dear TUS academics, staff, students, and graduates,    

This week more than 1,200 staff and students at University College Cork signed a letter condemning the "mass killing, starvation and destruction being inflicted on the Palestinian people by the Israeli government and army". They have joined NUIG and TU Dublin in voicing their abhorrence.

We here in TUS must do the same and add our voices to the global outrage at the violations of humanitarian law and the threat to international order posed by the impunity with which Israeli is acting and the unbearable loss of life that is unfolding in real time before our eyes.

The death toll has now passed 30,000, including 13,000 children. Countless more children and babies have been maimed or orphaned, leading to the coining of a new abbreviation used by humanitarian organisations, WCNSF, or ‘wounded child, no surviving family’, and to UNICEF spokesperson James Elder declaring it a ‘war on children’.

Millions of Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, and several international humanitarian organisations such as the United Nations have warned of the escalating risks of starvation and death by disease due to the conditions that have been created.

As you are aware, the International Court of Justice has held that there is a 'plausible case of genocide' committed by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza.   

Of particular significance to us as an academic community is the fact that all of the universities in Gaza have now been destroyed and many leading academics, and communities of students in Gaza appear to have been killed deliberately in targeted strikes. Israel has purposefully and without prior notice, bombed the homes of academics, scientists, students and teachers. 94 university professors and at least 231 teachers have been killed. 

As we know, a university is more than just a building, it is a place that symbolises growth, creativity and nurturing of life and learning within a community. Staff and students in universities are holders of the future dreams and aspirations of a people. These attacks on Gazan universities, students and academics place particular demands of solidarity on us as a university community.  

We are asking that you sign this letter of solidarity with the Palestinian people and that the TUS community in Limerick add our voices to those of the USI, UL Student Life, UL Postgraduate Student Union, and our friends and colleagues in Cork, Galway and Dublin to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and for urgent steps be taken to address the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Palestine.        

Signed,