Pro-Palestinian students occupied the Braem building at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) early Tuesday.
The students aims to disrupt operations in a building that houses the university’s chancellory, according to reports from the Belga News Agency.
The action follows a similar protest at University of Ghent (UGent), where the chancellory was blocked on 13 May with the same demand.
Pro-Palestinian students and university collaborators are calling for an immediate halt to collaborations and an academic boycott of Israel, claiming that Israeli knowledge centres "contribute to genocide" in the region.
Jan Danckaert, President of the Flemish Interuniversity Council and Chancellor of VUB, has expressed support for suspending the EU-Israel association agreement in an open letter to Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot.
This agreement currently allows Israeli researchers to participate in European research programmes, and its suspension could ease the end of collaborations with Israeli partners.
Activists feel compelled to continue with "further-reaching actions." The blockades at Ghent and VUB mark "a new phase of a national movement arising from student occupations last academic year."
While students welcome the Flemish Interuniversity Council’s open letter and call for suspending the agreement, they emphasise that "this request is solely the outcome of our struggle over the past year and a half."
