US university to divest from companies aiding Israel's genocide in Gaza
The University of San Francisco (USF) has announced a decision to divest from four major weapons and surveillance companies that are complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Kellie Samson, a USF spokesperson, said the decision, which is effective on June 1, will see the university in California selling its stock holdings in Palantir, L3Harris, GE Aerospace, and RTX.
The four companies are among the many firms doing business with the Tel Aviv regime or in the occupied territories.
Samson, however, claimed that the decision was not made due to the university students’ argument about the companies’ ties to Israel.
Meanwhile, pro-Palestine campus activists celebrated the announcement as a major win.
“As a result of over a year of demanding our university cut ties with Israel, the University of San Francisco has committed to divest from four companies fueling the genocide in Gaza,” a leader of the campus protest movement said.
Alia Sky, a USF law student, said that although the divestment is a win for pro-Palestine activists, they will make more efforts to achieve justice for Palestinians.
Beyond calling for divestment from “all Israeli occupation affiliated endowments and investments,” a coalition of University of San Francisco for Justice in Palestine wants USF to end all “academic opportunities, trips, scholarships, and relationships with the Israeli occupation.”
Earlier, students occupied USF’s Gleeson Library atrium and renamed it after Hossam Shabat in tribute to the Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent, who was killed in an Israeli strike on his car in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahiya in March.
Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Hamas resistance group carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
To date, the occupying regime has failed to achieve its declared objectives despite killing at least 52,535 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 118,491 others in the besieged territory.
