As the Israeli genocide of Gaza intensifies and a famine is declared, a group of eight faculty, students, and staff from across the City University of New York (CUNY) have launched an indefinite hunger strike outside the Graduate Center in Manhattan. They will be at this location from 12 to 6 pm every day and are demanding that, “Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez and the CUNY Board of Trustees immediately divest from the zionist state and from all weapons and technology manufacturers equipping the israeli-US genocide in Palestine.” The hunger strikers are launching a fundraiser to support families in Gaza and hosting political education, art, and mutual aid events for the local community in New York.
The also said in their joint statement:
Instead of feeding its students who suffer from food insecurity or paying its workers a living wage, CUNY has chosen to invest in increasing funding for policing and surveillance on campus, including the notoriously racist New York Police Department (NYPD), which violently arrested over 170 people protesting genocide at the CUNY Gaza Solidarity Encampment on April 30, 2024 and over a dozen more at Brooklyn College on May 8, 2025.
They are using the strike as an opportunity to continue bringing the CUNY community together during the summer and are inviting campus and community groups to hold teach-ins and other events in front of the building.
In other statements during the press conference, workers made explicit the connections between the hunger strike, the ongoing genocide, and other issues facing students and workers at CUNY and abroad. One speaker drew connections between the fight against Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the attacks on immigrants in the United States with the movement for Palestine, citing Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student who remains in ICE detention after the Department of State abruptly revoked his Green Card due to his Palestine activism.
One of the co-chairs of the Graduate Center chapter of The largest union representing faculty and staff at CUNY, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), explained the important role the labor movement has to play in the struggle to liberate the Palestinian people:
Many of us here are workers. We say solidarity forever – what does that actually mean, as a practice? […] Over the last 20 months of genocide, we have seen leaders of refusal all across the labor movement, from longshore workers in Oakland, to academic workers across the UC system, Starbucks workers, who have put that corporation on the back foot, and PSC union members, who last year went on a sick out in protest of the repression of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment and for the Five Demands.
He then quoted the final verse of the labor hymn “Solidarity Forever” as a reminder of workers’ strategic power within the economy: “In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold/ Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold/ We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old/ For the union makes us strong.”
Another speaker read a moving statement from his mentor, whom he had studied with when visiting Gaza for research several years ago.
Hunger Strikes and Violent Crackdowns
In recent weeks, dozens of people across the United States have gone on hunger strike to demand an end to the genocide in Palestine, for their universities to divest from Israel, and to protect international students from ICE. This includes students, faculty, and staff at several campuses in California, Oregon, and New Jersey, including UCLA, Stanford, the University of Oregon, and Yale.
Some community groups such as the Maine Coalition for Palestine and Veterans for Peace have also launched hunger strikes in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle against genocide and occupation. In March this year, students at the University of British Columbia in Canada launched a two-day hunger strike calling for divestment. That same month, 20 healthcare workers in Marseille, France launched a hunger strike in solidarity with Palestine. Earlier this month, academics and professors from various universities in Mexico held a 24-hour fast demanding that the Sheinbaum government sever its political and diplomatic relations with Israel.
The PSC voted to pass a resolution earlier this year which would have divested the union from Israel. However, the union bureaucracy undemocratically reversed this decision, leaving workers desperate for their demands to be heard.
At Brooklyn College earlier this month, union members held a protest demanding better wages and conditions for adjunct faculty. They were joined by students holding a protest for Palestine at the same location. This student-worker solidarity led to an encampment where faculty members of the PSC protected students from Public Safety officers, sustaining the encampment for six hours. Eventually, CUNY Public Safety officers and the NYPD Strategic Response Group brutally suppressed the peaceful protest, leaving many students injured and detained just days after dozens of students at Columbia University were also arrested for protesting for Palestine.
This wave of hunger strikes comes alongside protests at graduation ceremonies across the world, from the U.S. to the UK. Recently, a trans student at New York University, Logan Rozos, had his diploma revoked after speaking in support of Palestine at graduation. At Brooklyn College last week, the NYPD brutally repressed students for walking across the stage with Palestinian flags and pro-Palestine signs. Students at Virginia Commonwealth University had their diplomas withheld ahead of graduation due to participation in pro-Palestine protests on campus. Some students at the University of Texas at Dallas were outright banned from attending their graduation ceremonies.
Uniting Our Struggles for Palestine
Palestinians in Gaza are starving to death. The Israeli military recently opened fire on crowds gathered in Rafah, killing at least three and injuring dozens more, as they desperately attempted to access very limited food aid. Earlier this week, over 50 people were killed in bombings in Gaza City, some of them burning alive inside the school where they had been sheltering. Meanwhile, Israel has just approved new settlements in the West Bank.
The hunger strike at CUNY represents the frustration that students and faculty are experiencing after their demands for divestment remain unheard after nearly two years of genocide. CUNY workers have lost faith in their union, and students continue to face escalating repression from the university administration for displaying their support for Palestine.
The hunger strike comes as a last resort, after various student and worker-led efforts at ending CUNY’s complicity in the genocide have been suppressed. This strike must be used as a site of discussion and preparation for a long and effective fight in solidarity with Palestine. Not only does this strike reflect a growing solidarity between workers and students but also a strong refusal from the CUNY community to be complicit in genocide.