UNB's Saint John campus is among the latest sites of a Gaza solidarity camp, amid a series of student protests and occupations across North America that have sometimes been met with severe police clampdowns.
Meanwhile, professors at UNB Fredericton have supported the students by pressing administrators at university Senate to disclose ties to Israeli institutions.
Unlike on-campus protests in other parts of North America, students in Saint John haven't attempted to occupy the site overnight.
Up to 20 people have attended the protest site in the quad at UNB Saint, according to Sarah Durham, a doctoral student in the Department of Biological Sciences at UNB Saint John.
Video footage and photos from the location shows placards and banners calling for a ceasefire, Palestinian flags, at least one tent and a hammock, and a small group of people seated in lawn chairs or blankets spread out on the grass.
"We set up every morning and then we take down in the evening, so we haven't escalated anything quite yet," Durham said. She said the response has mostly been positive, although one or two people have attended as counter-protesters.
The protest sprang up spontaneously after she learned that the biology department chair, Prof. Jeff Houlahan, was out in the quad with a sign that said "Free Gaza."
"I grabbed all my stuff and I ran out there to join him and I just put out the word," she said. "And that first day, I would say there was probably around 10 people and it's kind of waxed and waned ever since."
It's part of a protest movement against Israel's war in the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinian death toll had reportedly reached at least 35,173 by Tuesday. The International Court of Justice ruled in January that Israel's acts could plausibly amount to genocide.
A petition that had collected nearly 500 signatures by Wednesday morning calls on UNB to "disclose all its associations, partnerships, and investments with Israeli entities."
It also calls on the university to "cease all collaborations and partnerships with and divest all investments from Israeli entities that are complicit in the occupation of Palestinian territories and the maintenance of the apartheid regime," among other demands.
In response to a question from several professors who are members of the UNB Fredericton Senate, the university administration stated that "currently UNB does not have any active partnerships with Israeli institutions" and reported that a small fraction of its endowment is invested in Israel-based companies.
A written statement from Prof. David MaGee, vice-president of research, states that UNB has equity investments in 35 companies "domiciled in Israel," worth about $340,000, or roughly 0.08 per cent of the $445.2 million fund.
Check out our website for the full report: nbmediacoop.org.
David Gordon Koch is a journalist with the NB Media Co-op. This reporting has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada, administered by the Canadian Association of Community Television Stations and Users (CACTUS).
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