Israeli universities face increasing boycott due to wars: Report

Israeli universities are facing an increasing boycott over Israel’s wars in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Iran, deepening the country’s academic isolation, local media reported on Thursday.

The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, citing a report by Israel’s Association of University Heads (VERA), said a 66% rise in complaints was reported by Israeli universities over foreign academic boycotts due to the Israeli wars.

The report warned of “a sharp escalation in the global academic boycott of Israel,” saying that the isolation has become a “strategic threat.”

The most alarming figure, according to the report, is a 150% increase in efforts to exclude Israel from Horizon Europe, the European Union’s flagship funding program for research and innovation, with a budget exceeding 95 billion euros ($111 billion.)

The report covers the period from October 2025 to April 2026 and says that despite the ceasefire in Gaza and the shift toward Iran, “the boycott trend is not fading.”

The report noted that while boycotts targeted individual researchers in 2024 and 2025, new data showed that most boycott incidents in recent months targeted academic institutions and professional associations.

Yedioth Ahronoth said the figures are part of a broader trend showing a 66% increase in complaints compared with the first year of the war, with a total of 1,120 boycott complaints recorded during the report period.

Belgium tops the list of countries where academic boycotts of Israeli universities are reported, followed by the Netherlands, England, Spain and Italy.

“Israel could find itself outside the scientific club,” causing irreparable damage to its standing as a leading startup nation, the newspaper warned.

“The report proves that the academic boycott is not a passing phenomenon, but a long-term campaign threatening the core of Israeli research,” said Daniel Chamovitz, president of Ben-Gurion University and chairman of VERA.

The report said 41% of boycott cases involved an explicit suspension of cooperation, while about 30% involved disruptions of lectures and conferences.

It warned that boycott groups are exploiting diplomatic and security tensions to intensify Israel’s academic isolation.

On Oct. 8, 2023, Israel launched a genocidal war on Gaza that lasted two years, killing more than 72,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounding more than 172,000 others.

Despite the ceasefire agreement in effect since Oct. 10, 2025, Israel has kept restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid and continues daily strikes that have killed 856 Palestinians and wounded 2,463.

“The initial assumption that a ceasefire in Gaza would curb boycott activity has not materialized,” the report said.

“Monitoring of boycott groups’ rhetoric shows they quickly adjusted to changing circumstances, including the war with Iran and Israeli operations in Lebanon,” it added.

Since March 2, Israel has waged a broad offensive on Lebanon, killing 2,896 people, wounding 8,824 and displacing more than 1 million, according to official figures.

Israel and the United States also began a war on Iran on Feb. 28, killing more than 3,000 people, and triggering retaliation from Tehran against Israel, as well as US allies in the Gulf, along with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

*Writing by Lina Altawell in Istanbul