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University of Edinburgh students stage pro-Palestine walkout during graduation ceremony

More than a dozen University of Edinburgh students staged a walkout during their graduation ceremony on Wednesday in protest at the university’s alleged financial links to Israel.

Several students held banners as they demonstrated at the front of the graduation hall, including one that appeared to accuse the school of putting “profits over people”, while another was draped in a Palestinian flag.

After a brief demonstration lasting a matter of seconds, the group left the ceremony to applause from many of those remaining in the audience.

According to Edinburgh University Justice for Palestine Society, those taking part were history graduates.

A recent report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories said the university held almost £25.5 million – around 2.5 per cent of its endowment – in Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM, companies the report said were linked to Israel’s military and surveillance infrastructure.

It described Edinburgh as “among the UK’s most financially entangled institutions” because of those holdings and other research partnerships. The university has not accepted that characterisation.