University professors and students have held a conference in the Gaza Strip to call for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel.

The event was organized by the campaign of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel (BDS) in Gaza City on Saturday.
 
Haidar Eid, a member of the BDS movement, said the conference is sending a “strong message” to the world that resistance will continue with the help and support of the international community.
 
Joe Carton, an American activist in Gaza attending the Saturday conference, told Press TV the academic and cultural boycott of Israel is “focused on excluding the apartheid regime from polite society around the world and supporters of the Palestinian struggle can join it by refusing exchanges with Israeli academic institutions.”
 
The Saturday conference in Gaza was held a day after Israeli troops shot dead 20-year-old Mahmud Zakut in the city of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza Strip on a day when thousands of pro-Palestinians gathered in the occupied territories to mark the Palestinian Land Day on March 30.
 
March 30 is commemorated because of a deadly incident on that day in 1976 in which Israeli troops killed six Palestinians during a protest against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian lands.
 
Aya Bashir, another BDS member, said on Saturday the movement will take the “opportunity on Land Day to highlight the issue of the BDS campaign until we put an end to the Israeli apartheid policies.”
 
(Press TV)