On October 15th, 2025, Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Houston launched a hunger strike in solidarity with the great people of Gaza, who for two years have been starved under Israel’s siege and massacred with military technology developed at institutions like the University of Houston.

In 2021, we launched our divestment campaign targeting the very investments which make this genocide possible. It is common knowledge that the University of Houston is complicit in arming Israel through its research to develop deadly military technologies and its investments in top US arms manufacturers, such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Electric, and Northrop Grumman. These companies produce the very components used in F-35 fighter jets and Hellfire missiles. In other words, every home demolished and every hospital unit destroyed in Gaza can be traced back to our university.

Since 2021, the university has shamefully ignored the will of its students. In the face of popular mobilization across campus, and in the wake of the most brutal genocide of our generation, the University of Houston has chosen death and destruction over justice. Despite this, the demand for divestment and an arms embargo has proliferated across our city.

With this hunger strike, we unite with the citywide Houston Arms Embargo campaign.

Israel relies on our academic institutions to research and develop its weapons, and it relies on our ports to ship them. Just thirty minutes from campus, components for the F-35 fighter jet, MK83 bomb, and other arms destined for Israel are transported through the Port of Houston. The Houston Arms Embargo campaign is mobilizing masses to the port, pressuring local officials, and uniting Houstonians around one common goal: End Houston's Complicity in Genocide.

From students to workers, we must come together across sectors to disrupt Houston’s role in the global arms trade that sustains Israel's assault on Gaza. As the student front of the campaign for a Houston Arms Embargo, we call on all students at the University of Houston and universities across the city to join us in this fight. We cannot let our universities profit off of genocide.

We also understand that Israel tests its technologies of occupation on Palestinians and then exports them globally. We're seeing the same military-industrial complex that arms Israel also supply ICE with the surveillance technology it uses to persecute immigrant communities in our city. The same drones used to kill Palestinian children, medics, journalists, students, and professors are deployed here in Texas to patrol the US-Mexico border.

UH STUDENTS DEMAND THAT THE UNIVERSITY:

1. Divest from companies that perpetuate occupation, apartheid, and genocide.
2. Cancel its research with military contractors.
3. Remove Coca-Cola, Sabra, Starbucks, and Pizza Hut from campus.
4. Refuse to collaborate with federal immigration enforcement and establish itself as a Sanctuary Campus from ICE.

Universities are deeply embedded in the infrastructure of genocide. They host weapons research, partner with military contractors, and train the engineers and policymakers who develop and maintain the international arms industry.

However, UH is also a cornerstone of the Houston community. What happens on this campus sets an example for the city. As students, we have a responsibility and an opportunity to disrupt the production of genocidal technologies and to sever the connection between higher education and the war industry. The city is waiting. Will you divest?

UH Divest & Houston Arms Embargo Now!

-UH Student Front of the Houston Arms Embargo Campaign

Postscript: Update from the strike today, October 22. One student is on day eight and three new students joined the strike.