As students and researchers of IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, we stand in mourning and in full solidarity with Palestinians in their decades-long struggle against settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Israeli government. More than one hundred days into one of the most brutal campaigns of bombardment and displacement of a civilian population, as scholars, we cannot continue to perpetuate academic silence around such a blatant example of colonial violence in real-time.
As members of the Italian academic community, we write this letter in the name of freedom and justice, united by the demand for an immediate end to the ongoing genocide against Palestinian people in Gaza. We believe it is our individual, communal, and scholarly duty to oppose the positions taken so far by the Italian government, which continues to abstain from voting in the UN General Assembly resolution on the immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, and to take responsibility for actions and demands to counter the increasing level of violence we are collectively witnessing.
We unite our voices with those of the students protesting and occupying schools and universities in Italy and all around the world, of international communities of researchers who have published similar statements, and those of the Italian academic community who condemn Israel’s crimes against humanity and genocidal conduct against the Palestinians, that has caused the death of more than 23.000 people, for the most part women and children, in addition to the displacement and disabling of countless more.
We, the undersigned, declare our support and express our solidarity with the Palestinian people. We strongly condemn the atrocities committed by the Israeli regime and call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the blockade of Gaza, an end to the military occupation of Palestinian lands including the West Bank, a dismantling of the entire apartheid system, and the implementation of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the rights of self-determination and return, healthcare and education.
Lucca, 30/01/2024