Crouched on the squeaky black tiles, the young faces of students screamed the same chants, united, crying for a free Palestine. This year, Students for Palestine organised national demonstrations on the 29th of February and on the 14th of March.

Students for Palestine is a national group of uni and high school students which has organised Palestine activism on campuses since 2008. This year we walked out of our universities which are complicit in the current genocide in Gaza. We walked out because we cannot be silent while this genocide continues, despite the media attempting to ignore this crime. Hundreds and thousands of students came out onto the streets angry. We were outraged at our university’s longstanding relationship with Lockheed Martin, furious that one of the world’s largest defence contractors, a company whose weapons have been used in genocide, were funding a lab just off campus to research new death machines.

When we protested last year, the government told us to shut up and go back to school. But our anger will not be silenced, and we will continue to walk out and protest the Australian institutions complicit in Israel’s genocidal war. We are having another national strike for Palestine on April 18, here’s why you should walk out with us: 

1. Israel's war on Gaza continues to ravage Palestine and the Palestinians. So far, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, over 33,000 people have been murdered in Gaza, and our government and schools are complicit. Penny Wong has no qualms with signing a disgusting $917 million contract with Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, and in the same pen stroke cutting funding to the UN aid organisation UNRWA. Now, according to CARE International, 2.2 million Palestinians are on the brink of a human-made starvation. If any meagre aid does make its way to Gaza, the people attempting to reach it are ruthlessly sniped down by Israeli forces. Just earlier this month, an aid convoy was bombed by the military, killing seven international aid workers. How can we be silent while our government and schools mouth platitudes of humanitarianism but continue to contribute to this brutal genocide?

2. Students can play an important part in this movement and, more broadly, in all struggles for social justice. Students have played important roles in movements against war, from opposing the Vietnam War to fighting for civil rights in America. Students have been on the front line of these impressive movements, making their anger known. We need to do the same for Palestine today. The University of Melbourne has a rich history of protest; during the ‘70s draft resisters were hidden in the old union building, which became a haven for the anti-war movement against the Vietnam war and against the rampage of imperialism.

3. We can't let this become normalised! We cannot become desensitised to genocidal offensives, in spite of the efforts of government and media. So long as Palestinians are under siege, we must continue to protest for their freedom. We are angry and we must continue to be angry. We must continue to disrupt daily life, because how can business go on as usual whilst the Al-Shifa Hospital is littered with the bodies of murdered Palestinians, and that's only one example out of countless others. We will continue to come out and show solidarity.

Whenever we feel tired or overwhelmed, we should remember the words of Nowar Diab, a university student living in occupied Gaza:

“There is one thing that has recently given me hope in the face of the tragedy that has become our lives here in Gaza. It is the pictures of hundreds of thousands of people standing up for us and protesting in our name.”

Join us at 1pm on April 18 in the Amphitheatre of the New Student Precinct for the next school strike for Palestine!

Reema Ababneh is a member of Students for Palestine and Socialist Alternative.