Pro-Palestinian encampment remains at University of Toronto despite safety concerns

The University of Toronto says it’s concerned about safety as a pro-Palestinian encampment still stands at its downtown campus.

The demonstrators have set up an encampment at King’s College Circle on campus, calling on the university to sever financial ties with the Israeli government and for a ceasefire in the ongoing war in Gaza.

Students arrived under the cover of darkness around 4 a.m. Thursday to dismantle a portion of the fence that had been erected by the university to prevent the type of encampments that have sprung up at other universities across the country and in the United States.

In an update Thursday night, the school said while the protest has been “mostly peaceful” it has also been “disruptive.”

“Our property is private,” a school statement said. “You do not have our permission to be here after 10 p.m. In our communications with a representative of your group today, we reiterated our request that you leave campus by 10 p.m. However, if your activities remain peaceful, we do not intend to remove you from campus this evening.”

“Our concerns about safety are increasing. You have called for others to join your protest and the numbers have grown significantly since this afternoon. We are concerned that many of the individuals present may not be U of T students or other members of the U of T community. We have asked you, on several occasions, to identify a U of T student liaison and you have not provided one.”

A spokesperson for the demonstrators says the encampment comes after exhausting all other avenues of dialogue with university officials, which included occupying the president’s office a few weeks ago.

“We spent the last six months engaging in every form of protest at our disposal,” said Sara Rasikh in a statement on behalf of the protesters. “The administration has ignored our demands and attempted to intimidate us into silence. We are left with no other choice but to escalate.”

Protesters point out that the university has previously divested from South African apartheid in the 1980s and divested in fossil fuels in 2021.

“We know that divestment works, they have a policy for ethical investments on the book so all we’re asking is for them to adhere to that and ensure that their investments are ethical and that they are not funding an active genocide,” protester Erin Mackey tells CityNews.

An earlier written notice given to protesters said the university’s grounds and buildings are private property and “unauthorized activities such as encampments or the occupation of University buildings are considered trespassing.”

“Our preference is to start with dialogue. Those who contravene university policy or the law risk the consequences set out in various laws and policies such as the Code of Student Conduct, which could include suspension,” read a statement released by U of T.

Mohammad Yassin, a fourth-year student with relatives in Gaza and a refugee camp in Lebanon, said while at the encampment on Thursday that the students, faculty, and members of the public who are participating in the protest plan to stay until their demands are met.

“What we’re doing here is basically nothing compared to what the people in Palestine are going through,” he said Thursday.

“This is not just some childish thing – we’re here just to make our voice heard and we’re standing firm and we want our demands to be heard.”

Toronto police say they are monitoring the situation from a distance and have not engaged the protesters.

“The university is leading the planning for protests on their property. We are in contact with them but our assistance has not been requested at this time,” Toronto police said in a statement to CityNews.

Similar protest camps have been set up at several other Canadian university campuses in B.C. and at Montreal’s McGill University as well as at scores of post-secondary schools in the United States.

The International Court of Justice is investigating whether Israel has committed acts of genocide in the ongoing war in Gaza, with any ruling expected to take years. Israel has rejected allegations of wrongdoing and accused the court of bias.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza was launched after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 men women and children hostage. The Israeli offensive has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials.

The war has wreaked vast destruction and brought a humanitarian disaster with several thousand Palestinians in northern Gaza facing imminent famine, according to the United Nations.

Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report