Inside ‘peaceful and proud’ Gaza protest camp at a UK university

The university, meanwhile, says it “respects the right to peaceful protests and freedom of speech” and that they are “engaging with protesters”.

“Our priority is always to ensure that our campus remains safe for everyone and protests should be within the law – we do not tolerate the use of threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour that causes, or is likely to cause, distress,” it said in a statement this week.

Risk assessors also come by the camp while I’m there to make sure things are still peaceful, and that there aren’t any health and safety issues.

Lecturer Dr Mori Ram also comes to chat to students and show his support. He’s originally from Israel, and has family near the border with Lebanon.

The 7 October attacks by Hamas, and the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in the months since, have deeply affected him.

“To be honest, for the first time, I feel shame. My family is there… everything that happens there, they are exposed,” Dr Ram says.

“I do think that encampments like this, and what’s happening right now in the US, may provide the necessary political pressure on the Israeli government to hopefully bring things to an end, in a good way.”

But Dr Mori says he knows he’s “not a representative of the majority of Israelis” with his views on the conflict.

Mr Dabby-Joory, from the UJS, said that “Jewish students, like all student communities, are broad and diverse, and there are a range of views in the Jewish student community”.

“But I think many Jewish students are feeling unwelcome, uncomfortable and on edge,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean that every student is feeling it, but we know from speaking to so many of our 9,000 students across the country that so many of them are feeling those things while on campus.”

The tensions within the community, and between others from her faith and those from her political groups, have affected Naomi too.

“It’s incredibly isolating,” she tells me.

“One of the slogans that’s often used [by Jewish pro-Palestinian activists] is ‘not in my name’. And I think, well, why should it be in anyone’s name.

“It’s also been an incredibly isolating experience to see the reaction to pro-Palestinian activism by other Jewish people, personally and in the wider world.

“It’s been quite difficult at times to feel that sense of community, which has been such a big part of my upbringing.”