Irish university to cut links with Israel over Gaza war

Ireland's prestigious Trinity College Dublin said on Wednesday that it would cut all links with Israel in protest at "ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law."

The university's board informed students by email on Wednesday that it had accepted the recommendations of a taskforce to sever "institutional links with the State of Israel, Israeli universities and companies headquartered in Israel."

The recommendations would be "enacted for the duration of the ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law", said the email sent by the board's chairman Paul Farrell, and seen by AFP.

The taskforce was set up after part of the university's campus in central Dublin was blockaded by students for five days last year in protest at Israel's actions in Gaza.

Among the taskforce's recommendations approved by the board were pledges to divest "from all companies headquartered in Israel" and to "enter into no future supply contracts with Israeli firms" and "no new commercial relationships with Israeli entities."

The university also said that it would "enter into no further mobility agreements with Israeli universities."

Trinity has two current Erasmus+ exchange agreements with Israeli universities: Bar Ilan University, an agreement that ends in July 2026, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which ends in July 2025, the university told AFP in an email.

The board also said that the university "should not submit for approval or agree to participate in any new institutional research agreements involving Israeli participation."

It "should seek to align itself with like-minded universities and bodies in an effort to influence EU policy concerning Israel's participation in such collaborations," it added.

Ireland has been among the most outspoken critics of Israel's response to the October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas militants that sparked the war in Gaza.

Polls since the start of the war have shown overwhelming pro-Palestinian sympathy in Ireland.

In May 2024, Dublin joined several other European countries in recognising Palestine as a "sovereign and independent state."

It then joined South Africa in bringing a case before the International Court of Justice in the Hague accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza -- charges angrily denied by Israeli leaders.

In December, Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar ordered the closure of the country's embassy in Dublin, blaming Ireland's "extreme anti-Israel policies".

Agence France-Presse