University of California official says system has $32 billion in holdings targeted by protesters

livemint.com:

fossil fuels in 2020. For weeks, students at campuses across the country have been protesting and setting up encampments at their universities to call on them to be more transparent about their investments and to divest from companies that financially support Israel.

The demonstrations have led to disruptions, arrests and debates over free speech rights. Tensions between protesters, law enforcement and administration at the University of California, Los Angeles, have garnered some of the most attention.

The protests stem from the current Israel-Hamas conflict which started on Oct. 7 when Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of Gaza’s inhabitants.

In a letter provided to The Associated Press by the UC president’s office, the UC Divest Coalition — which is made up of anti-war student advocates across UC campuses — asked the university system to end any investments in “companies that perpetuate war or weapons manufacturing, including companies that give economic support to the state of Israel, and therefore perpetuate the ongoing occupation and genocide of the Palestinian people." “Investment in arms production is antithetical to the UC’s expressed values and the moral concerns of the students, workers, and faculty that the Regents represent," the letter says. The United Nation's top court in January ruled that Israel must do all it can to prevent