Inside the growing protest tent cities of Melbourne and Monash universities

In America, police raided student protest encampments at universities with rubber bullets and tear gas. In Melbourne, academics brought jam and scones.

For the past week, hundreds of students have been camping around-the-clock at Australian campuses, including the University of Melbourne and Monash University in Clayton. Inspired by a wave of protests at some of the most prestigious institutions in the United States, they’ve vowed to stay put until universities cut ties with weapons manufacturers, and condemn Israel’s war in Gaza. But though camps have been peaceful so far, tensions with pro-Israel students remain.

Nabil Hassine inside his tent on the lawn at the University of Melbourne.Credit: Simon Schluter

When The Age visited the University of Melbourne this week, at least 50 tents dotted the south lawn, with a core of about 50 campers staying most nights and more students and staff popping by between classes, sometimes with snacks.

In a cost-of-living crisis, 22-year-old student Nabil Hassine joked he’d found some prime real estate – opposite the university’s iconic sandstone clock tower. “Welcome to tent city,” he grinned.

There’s no electricity or fire allowed here. Phones and laptops are charged in the university library, and students make do with sleeping bags for warmth.

But there’s a pantry, a little makeshift library, even a study space in one back corner. A tutorial was held at the camp on Monday, students say. Tuesday was movie night, with popcorn and a projector wheeled in.

The University of Melbourne student encampment in protest against the war in Gaza.Credit: Simon Schluter

“We’ve had so much donated from the community, every kind of cuisine. So much bread and fruit we had to donate some to a homeless shelter,” Hassine said. “We’re organising with a Jewish organisation to come down on Friday night and do a Shabbat dinner.”

Varisha Ariadna, 19, runs security for the camp. “I sleep like a dolphin, half awake,” she quipped, “because if there’s an incident, I have to be there.”

There have already been agitators. On Wednesday, a handful of men – some wearing Israeli flags and Zionist T-shirts – walked through the camp and singled out a Palestinian student for questioning, confirmed in footage seen by this masthead.

The same day, when Monash students set up their own camp on its “lemon-scented lawn”, that “doesn’t even smell like lemons”, according to arts student and organiser Grace Hill, counter-protesters bearing an Israeli flag arrived.

Protesters with Israeli flags launch a counter-protest at the Monash University encampment on Wednesday.Credit: Justin McManus

But on the whole, students, staff and the odd security guard say the Australian camps have been “much more chill” than the US, where demonstrations have spread across the country. In New York on Wednesday (AEST), police in riot gear were called in by Columbia University and arrested dozens of protesters who had broken through windows and made barricades with furniture in one of its buildings. Hours later, pro-Israel supporters attacked the encampment.

Australian universities have warned students that safety is paramount but made no moves to clear them out.

Both Melbourne and Monash universities say they have a long history of student protest, but won’t tolerate occupation of buildings, property damage, violence, harassment or racism, or the disruption of university activity such as lectures.

Varisha Ariadna (left), Nabil Hassine and Merrick Craven at the University of Melbourne camp.Credit: Simon Schluter

“They’re keeping a watch on us,” said Ariadna at the Melbourne camp. “I think they think we’ll tire ourselves out. But we’re growing. We’ve probably doubled in size since we started.”

That was last Thursday, two days after tents were first pitched at the University of Sydney. There are now encampments at six universities across Australia, and most, including Monash, are run in partnership with national group Students For Palestine.

Ariadna stressed the Melbourne Uni camp was not affiliated with any group off campus.

A protest sign at the University of Melbourne.Credit: Simon Schluter

She learnt how to organise big demonstrations, from handling permits to handling police, as a teenager in the School Strike 4 Climate movement. Now in her second year of university, she said UniMelb for Palestine began organically, led by local Palestinian students.

“We’ve had support of course from other pro-Palestinian groups, and the community,” she said. The weekly Free Palestine march through Melbourne’s CBD changed its route to visit the encampment on Sunday.

”We come to uni to think critically, but soon as it impacts the status quo, we get told to shut up,” Ariadna said.

Some Jewish groups have called on universities to evict the camps or risk creating no-go zones for Jewish students and fomenting antisemitism.

The students at the Melbourne camp, some of whom are Jewish, say they will camp until their demands are met, including having universities disclose their research funding deals with weapons manufacturers and foreign militaries. But they stress they don’t want to make anyone feel unsafe.

Students set up a new protest camp at Monash University on Wednesday.Credit: Justin McManus.

“Calling something peaceful like this extremist or antisemitic downplays the real scourge of antisemitism,” Hassine said.

At lunchtime on Thursday, the Australasian Union of Jewish Students will hold a rally at the University of Melbourne “to stand up to hate on campus” after what they say have been “months of intimidation”.

Noah Loven, who runs the group and is a Monash student, said the rally was intended to remind Jewish students who have been afraid to identify as Jewish on campus that their community was behind them.

“Not all Jewish students have the same experience, but many tell us they’re avoiding campus or, in a handful of extreme cases, have dropped out altogether,” Loven said.

Stand-off: A supporter of Israel and a supporter of Palestine film each other at Monash on Wednesday.Credit: Justin McManus

The new Monash camp sits on a campus with the highest number of Jewish students in the country, he said. “I swung by and it has started off peaceful, but we see what’s happened in the US and we worry about escalation.”

The real concern, he said, was “external actors” visiting and “hijacking the camp to inflame tensions”. He called on universities to increase security checks.“Free speech and protest is a cornerstone of democracy … but we want universities to enforce anything that crosses the line into vilification of Jews.”

Universities, long the centre of public debate, have become a flashpoint for tension as the Palestinian and Jewish diasporas both grapple with the war. In a letter to the University of Melbourne this week, The Zionist Federation of Australia detailed an earlier incident in which pro-Palestine student protesters entered a classroom to take a survey of those against the war and took photos, which some Jewish students found intimidating.

Hassine said the camp was determined not to provoke tensions on campus.

While there’s fun on the lawn, sadness hangs overhead too.There are no more schools in Gaza, no universities. About half of those barricaded inside the Palestinian enclave are children. The Melbourne camp recently held a moment of silence for academics killed in the war.

“I look at my younger siblings, and I get a lump in my throat,” Hassine said. “I know I’m lucky to live here, to measure my life – everything I have to do, study, jobs – in hours. In Gaza, they live second by second. Any plane overhead can be it. I’m thinking about that a lot here.”

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