SANTIAGO (Dispatches) -- The Pontifical Catholic University Student Federation (FEUC) and the Organization in Solidarity with Palestine (OSP-UC) in Chile delivered a letter to President Gabriel Boric demanding “additional concrete measures and decisions to sever relations with Israel”.
The letter delivered during the president visit at the university’s headquarters also demanded that Chile provide support for the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel in the International Court of Justice.
In their letter, the Chilean students expressed their surprise at their country’s delay in joining the lawsuit against Israel, saying that this is inexplicable.
“Given the number of Chileans of Palestinian origin and the fact that the country has based its foreign policy on adherence to international law.”
The students underlined “the need for the executive authority to support the draft law prohibiting the import of goods and services from settlements in the occupied territories, which was approved by the parliamentary Human Rights Committee last January”.
They also expressed their “gratitude for your decisions in favor of justice in Palestine, the land of our fathers and grandfathers, but we demand more.”
Boric’s visit and meeting with university students came one day after they demanded that Chile sever diplomatic, economic and military relations with the entity that “commits genocide”.
Boric announced in a speech to students during a demonstration at the University of Chile in the capital, Santiago, marking the 76th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, that “it is very important that we do not view this anniversary as just another year but within the framework of the largest genocide in the world.”
The students chanted slogans such as “No more death of innocent children,” “Let’s sever relations with Israel” and “It’s not war, it’s genocide” while preparing for an encampment and joining the global movement to support the Palestinian people, which is being implemented at various universities around the world. 
In the UK, student protesters at the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in Cambridge University refused to answer questions by visiting right-wing Tory member of UK parliament, Suella Braverman, who has previously called pro-Palestine protests ‘hate marches’. 
Braverman has repeatedly defended Israel’s actions in Gaza and said she is married to a ‘proud Zionist’ who has family members enlisted in the Zionist occupation army.
Meanwhile, a total of 38% of students at Russell Group universities, a prestigious collection of 24 UK universities, stated that they believe Hamas’s October 7 operation against Israel was an “understandable act of resistance,” according to a poll commissioned by StandWithUs and shared exclusively with the Daily Mail.
The data was collected from 1000 university students across 20 academic institutions.
The poll found only one-third of students consider the operation a “terrorist” attack.