Johannesburg, South Africa – On May 13, ten tents were erected on the pristine lawn of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University) in Johannesburg, a pro-Palestinian camp that became known as the “Liberated Zone.”

The students, many of them wearing keffiyehs, used the lawns next to the main library, normally used for relaxing and eating, as a demarcated area for their protest and solidarity action.

Their demands: a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the withdrawal of investments from companies linked to Israel.

In capitals around the world, South Africa has emerged as a leading supporter of the Palestinian cause, calling for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza and urging the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to take strong action against Israel. But at home, South Africa’s academia is grappling with the same debates and protests that have caused uproar in the US and Europe, where governments are being criticized for their continued support of Israel.

South Africa’s most prestigious universities refused to disclose their links with Israeli organizations and institutions and resisted student calls for a total academic boycott.

While Wits University publicly condemned the Israeli military invasion of Gaza and called for a ceasefire, it resisted demands from protesting students to sever its ties with Israel.

The University of Cape Town (UCT) has not yet made a decision on the call to sever ties with institutions with links to Israel.

Previously, South African government officials had called on universities not to be “neutral” in their stance towards Palestine and to impose academic boycotts like those imposed worldwide against the apartheid regime in South Africa.

By the second day of the Wits student protest, the camp had grown to over 50 tents, each with its own study, sleeping and even art area.

A few days later, a week after the protests began, university security officers arrived at the camp to disperse the students. They removed Palestinian flags and posters with messages of solidarity and calls to end the “genocide in Gaza.” They also tore up posters expressing support for victims of other conflicts in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Raees Noorbhai, a spokesperson for the Wits Palestine Solidarity Committee, said the university had responded inadequately to students’ demands for full disclosure of its links with Israeli universities and organisations. “Wits has not adopted an academic boycott as a position. The resolution passed in the Senate called for a ceasefire but did not go much further,” he said.

Noorbhai, who is currently pursuing a master’s degree in astrophysics, added that the protesters were determined to pressure the university administration to fully disclose its ties to Israel.

Spread the word

In deciding to set up camps, the students were inspired by their peers at universities in the United States and elsewhere.

“We knew that like other universities around the world, we had to do something to protest. When we started talking about a camp, the plans started naturally,” said Kouthar Hussain, a student from Johannesburg.

“The students were very welcoming. We realized that many students were unaware of what was happening in the world, and when we told them what was going on, they came to support us,” Hussain said.

On the fourth day of the protest, students marched to a meeting of the Wits University Senate – an influential body – to voice their demands.

One of these demands was met. History lecturer Noor Nieftagodien told Al Jazeera that the university administration had voted for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. “The Senate voted for an immediate end to the violence,” he said.

The Senate did not comply with the students’ further demands, such as the disclosure of their connections to Israeli institutions and companies.

The Wits administration then gave the students an ultimatum to vacate the camp or face exclusion from classes; non-students faced charges of trespassing.

“The management of Wits likes to express words of support for Palestine, but continues to demonstrate through their actions that this is not the case,” a spokesperson for the Wits Liberated Zone students said in a statement on May 19.

The demonstrators did not resist the security forces and left only a tent as a sign of their solidarity. They also left bloody dolls wrapped in white cloths on the university lawn as a symbol of the children killed in Gaza.

Later that evening, security cleared the lawns.

Wits University did not respond to a request for comment on its decision to dismantle the camp in the liberated zone.

A history of protest

Since the start of the Israeli military offensive on Gaza last October, the Wits Palestine Solidarity Committee has held protests and solidarity rallies on campus.

The students are demanding that university leadership fully disclose the university’s relationships with Israel-aligned universities and companies, publicly show solidarity with Palestine, support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and end censorship and intimidation of pro-Palestinian activists and activities on campus.

The student activists are convinced that a comprehensive academic boycott is the only way to persuade Wits University to fully stand on the side of Palestine, Noorbhai said.

He said the students were inspired by the effectiveness of the series of boycotts against South African academic institutions and researchers that began in the 1960s at the request of the African National Congress (ANC) and aimed at using international pressure to force an end to South Africa’s apartheid system.

Student activists have been making similar demands for years in their public solidarity with Palestine.

In 2011, academics at the University of Johannesburg voted to end their 25-year collaboration with Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, an occupied Palestinian city officially known in Israel as Be’er Sheva.

But by and large, South African universities have resisted calls for a comprehensive academic boycott.

Solidarity makes us strong

In the midst of the Wits University protest, students from the University of Cape Town (UCT) – Africa’s highest-ranking university – also set up a tent camp with Palestinian flags and banners.

Hundreds of students gathered to call for financial and academic boycotts of Israel because of the Gaza war and the occupation of Palestinian land. They demanded that their university administration fully disclose its financial and academic ties to Israel and Israeli universities.

“This camp is intended to show solidarity with the people of Palestine who have been displaced by Israel’s occupation. It is also intended to raise awareness among students,” said a spokesperson for the UCT4Palestine campaign.

Students hung a poster at the entrance to the university’s Sarah Baartman Hall, named after a Khoikhoi woman who was sold into slavery and was a powerful symbolic figure in South Africa for a long time.

The poster listed the names of thousands of Palestinian children killed in the ongoing invasion of Gaza.

At mass gatherings, students held banners reading: “How many students must be killed before UCT does something?”

UCT spokesperson Elijah Moholola told local media at the start of the camp that the university administration supports peaceful protests by students. “UCT has always defended the right of all members of the campus community to protest peacefully and lawfully. The executive has not been officially commissioned by the group nor has it received any correspondence.”

Although the camp was disbanded due to health concerns – some students tested positive for COVID-19 – activists said they were determined to enforce a comprehensive academic boycott.

Before the camp in April, the UCT Senate had decided to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and further resolved: “No UCT academic shall enter into or maintain any relationship with any research group and/or network whose authors are associated with the Israeli government. [army] and/or the Israeli military more broadly.”

This move came after students regularly protested on campus and demanded action from the university administration.

While the Senate called for a ceasefire, the University Council, which oversees the Senate, has not yet issued a similar call.

Another prominent South African university, the University of Fort Hare, has taken a stronger stance than Wits University and UCT, committing not to seek any relations with Israeli institutions.

“Universities cannot remain neutral”

However, South African politicians are speaking more clearly about the situation.

Deputy Minister of Higher Education Buti Manamela told Al Jazeera that South African universities cannot remain neutral towards Palestine.

“We really want our universities and institutional organizations to do what most institutions did with apartheid: boycott it. We cannot mince our words on this,” he said.

Manamela said the government had warned university authorities not to stop protests in support of Palestine. “Universities have been destroyed and academics killed. [in Gaza]“How dare we try to be neutral,” he said.

At a memorial speech on May 8 in honour of the murdered Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, the Minister for International Relations and Cooperation, Naledi Pandor called on South African students to to move forward in solidarity with the Palestinians.

“Our universities have a special responsibility to lead by example and provide moral and political leadership as they claim to play a key role in promoting critical civil rights,” she said. “This is what our institutions did in the fight against apartheid and must do it again.”

Pandor later praised the students for their efforts to support Palestine.