Around 100 protesters gathered today (31/05) outside of Trinity College, where an encampment was established yesterday evening (30/05).

The gathering was labelled an “emergency rally” by the organisers of the encampment, Cambridge for Palestine (C4P).

The rally began at 13:00 and lasted for about an hour.

The first speaker at the event declared “We are back.” They continued: “We will never let genocide be normalised,” adding: “We know that the injunction will never stop us protesting.”

The University currently has an injunction to prevent protests on Greenwich House, The Old Schools, Senate House, and Senate House Yard. This injunction will remain in place until 26 July.

A second speaker stated that Palestinians “are being completely massacred” and “blown apart by tanks,” claiming: “Our University supports this. It knowingly supports this.”

Another speaker criticised Trinity for backtracking on divestment. In May 2024, the College reportedly voted to divest from arms companies. In November, the College’s Master, Sally Davies, stated that the College had “no interest” in doing so.

The speaker accused the College of “going back on their word after donors put so much pressure on them to not divest”. They added that the objective is for the encampment “to become a sight for sore eyes,” to demonstrate that “Palestine still exists,” and to show that “the student body stands with Palestine”.

They added: “The University has no right whatsoever to lecture us about human rights, to lecture us about human law, about international law, while it itself is deeply complicit and active in the killing of women and children.”

Yasser, a pro-Palestine activist who recently attached himself to the Senate House gates while a graduation ceremony was taking place, also spoke at the protest.

He explained that he has lost “a lot of [his] family members” during the war. He continued: “Some of which were lost because of drones: drones that Elbit manufacturers. Elbit that Trinity directly invests in.”

Defence contractor company Elbit Systems provides about 85% of the drones used by the Israeli military. Freedom of information requests have revealed that Trinity has investments in Elbit Systems, in addition to other arms companies on the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) list, which urges individuals to cut ties with companies linked to Israel.

Yasser said of Trinity: “Their investments help in the murder of my people. Their investments are directly involved in the murder of children, innocent children. Their investments destroyed my city, completely destroyed it.”

He also said that the profit which Trinity is making “is covered in the blood of children” and “is covered in the blood of women”.

Another protester accused Trinity of “literally investing in killing children,” adding: “but they can divest”. They said that Kings has demonstrated that “divestment is possible and plausible in Cambridge”.

Senior Proctor Dr Markus Gehring arrived towards the end of the rally. He told Varsity that the proctors are “very worried about exams being interrupted,” adding that the encampment “could potentially be disruptive to the integrity of the exam process”.

The encampment outside Trinity was formed about 17:30 on Saturday evening. C4P claims that the encampment has been set up following the University blocking “meaningful progress on divestment” in a working group on arms divestment, and adopting “anti-protest” policies against them.

The University and Trinity College have been contacted for comment.