In just over six months, Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed over 34,000 Palestinians, including over 14,000 children, and displaced nearly two million. As a result of Israel’s blockade on Gaza, it is now home to 95% of all people globally facing catastrophic levels of starvation. The majority of Gaza's hospitals are no longer functional, and those left standing have been raided and bombed by the Israeli Defense Forces. The World Health Organization warns that illness in Gaza may ultimately kill more people than Israel's military offensive, and the former head of Israel’s National Security Council has endorsed the spread of "severe epidemics" as an effective military strategy. After corralling 1.4 million people into a 25-square mile “safe zone” in Rafah, Israel has been dropping bombs on their tents there. According to the UN emergency relief chief, Gaza has become “uninhabitable.”

On January 26, the International Court of Justice determined that there is a “real and imminent risk” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Although the proceedings may take years to fully resolve, experts in international human rights law – including the lawyer who won the first ever order from the ICJ under the Genocide Convention – expect South Africa to win its case based on the mountain of evidence demonstrating clear genocidal intent. U.S. federal departments have also found evidence of Israel’s violations of international law. An internal memo from four U.S. State Department bureaus raised "serious concern over non-compliance" with international humanitarian law during Israel's “prosecution of the war on Gaza.”

We cannot stand idly by and watch these conditions persist any longer. In the context of an ongoing genocide and an ethnic cleansing campaign, we urge the Penn community – alumni, parents, and current students – to support the call for divestment from Israel’s illegal occupation and widely recognized system of apartheid.

We support divestment from Israel’s decades-long oppressive policies – not only its current military campaign – because we recognize that these policies maintain a cycle of violence in Palestine.

As alumni, parents, and current students of Penn, we condemn Penn for its retaliatory actions against students and faculty advocating for justice and freedom for Palestinians, as recently escalated by the unreasonable disciplinary actions, violent arrests, and sweeping of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. pledge to withhold all donations to the University until it meets the following demands:

1. Public statement: issue a statement calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

2. Financial divestment: disassociate and divest its endowment of all holdings in companies that profit from or engage in Israel’s ongoing military campaign, occupation, and apartheid policies. Commit to full financial transparency of all investments.

3. Military divestment: disclose and terminate Penn’s research on weapons of war funded by the Department of Defense and private defense contractors. This includes automated software and artificial intelligence technology used to enable genocide. In particular, we call on Penn to cut all ties with Ghost Robotics, which was founded in 2015 by Penn graduate students, received initial funding from Penn’s PCI Ventures, and in which arms manufacturers with direct financial ties to the Israeli Defense Forces have invested for the purposes of fitting the robots with drones and weapons to be used against civilians.

4. Academic and cultural boycott: Penn must refrain from any form of academic or cultural association with Israeli institutions and businesses, in line with the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Importantly, this boycott is of institutions, not individuals. The affiliation of Israeli cultural workers to an Israeli cultural institution is not grounds for applying the boycott.

We join students and alumni across the country in renewing our collective, urgent call for divestment.

Until our demands are met, we pledge to withhold any and all donations to Penn.