London – The lecture of Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský at London University UCL was interrupted this afternoon by pro-Palestinian student protesters. After about 20 minutes of continuous noise, the minister left the hall. In response, Lipavský said that he left the university based on the recommendation of the security forces. He was ready to finish the lecture.
In the first part of the one-hour program at the university, the head of Czech diplomacy was to give a roughly fifteen-minute speech on the topic of Czech foreign policy and the role of collective memory. At the end of the speech, in which he began to address the Russian invasion of Ukraine, several students stood up, began to shout at the minister that he was a war criminal, and shouted slogans such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” sea, Palestine will be free) or that Israel is a terrorist state.
The minister waited for about two dozen minutes to see if the situation would calm down. Based on the recommendations of the security forces, he subsequently left the hall via the emergency exit, as other activists blocked the access corridors. For example, the head of diplomacy could not go to another lecture room.
“Based on the recommendations of the security forces, we left the university. I was ready to finish the lecture and answer questions in the discussion,” said Lipavský after his departure.
The war in the Palestinian Gaza Strip was sparked last October by a terrorist attack by Hamas and its allies on southern Israel, during which militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 others to Gaza as hostages. According to Israel, 97 people remain in captivity, of which 34 have been declared dead by the army. Since a single ceasefire that lasted just a week at the end of last November and released over 100 hostages, all other attempts at a deal brokered by the US, Egypt and Qatar have failed. Last week there were reports in the media that Qatar was ending its role as a mediator until Israel and Hamas showed a “sincere willingness to return to the negotiating table”.
At least 43,764 Palestinians have been killed and another 103,490 injured in Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in the Gaza Strip since last October, according to today’s data from the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health. The data does not distinguish between Hamas fighters and civilians, of which they are the majority. Thousands more bodies probably remain under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
Palestine Israel Britain Czech Republic demonstration diplomacy government
Source: www.ceskenoviny.cz
