The academic Senate of the University of Messina, meeting today in a session open to the participation of the student associations, has unanimously deliberated the immediate suspension of the collaboration agreement with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The decision is part of the requests of the requests made by the university community regarding the Gaza crisis.
During the session, the University government body reiterated the sentence already expressed last July against the actions of the Israeli government, defined as “inhuman violence” and “systematic violation of human rights”, up to configuring itself as “genocide”, in line with what was reported by international institutions.
In addition to the suspension of the agreement – which at the moment had not had concrete application – the Senate has established that future partnerships will not be approved with universities or research centers that explicitly explicitly supported the actions of the Israeli government. At the same time, the University has confirmed the intention to strengthen relations with institutions that share the founding values of the University of Messina.
On the front of the support for the population affected by the crisis, the University has announced a series of concrete measures: the promotion of humanitarian corridors for students, students and teachers from the Gaza Strip, with the support of the ECmi (center of university for migration, social integration and intercultural communication); the strengthening of scholarships already available for those coming from war territories; and the activation of calls for the recruitment of Palestinian teachers through the network Scholar at risk.
Finally, the Senate approved that the cultural initiatives dedicated to the humanitarian crisis in Palestine will have greater recognition in terms of university training credits, compared to the usual hour/CFU ratio.