Israel’s defense minister calls for halting pro-Gaza protests at US universities

JERUSALEM

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called on Wednesday for an end to protests in support of the Gaza Strip at American universities.

''The protests taking place on US college campuses are not only anti-Semitic but also inciting terrorism,'' Gallant claimed on his X account.

The defense minister called on US authorities and universities to “act now to defend Jewish youth.”

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, for his part, claimed that “Diaspora Jews” are facing a wave of anti-Semitism in the US, Europe, and the world.

"I have asked the Commissioner of Police to formulate an aid plan to establish local defense forces that will protect the Jewish communities and institutions abroad, through professional support, including a training plan and technological response to security,” he added on X.

The Defense Forces are a limited armed security force well-established in Israel. They were formed to protect Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank and are designed to act swiftly during the initial response to a security incident until additional forces arrive.

Pro-Palestinian protests have swept US universities amid a deadly Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, which killed more than 34,200 people since last October following a Hamas attack, which killed nearly 1,200 people.

On April 18, pro-Palestinian students at Columbia University in New York began a sit-in to protest the university’s ongoing financial investments in companies that support the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

The protests swiftly spread to other leading universities across the country, including New York University, Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of North Carolina.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul