Dozens of Iraqi university students and professors have taken out rallies at a Baghdad campus in solidarity with Gaza and pro-Palestinian protests at US universities, AFP correspondents have said.

Iraqi Education Minister Naeem al-Aboudi expressed his support for the “free voices in universities” around the world, and called for protests in solidarity with the embattled Gaza Strip. Students at Al-Nahrain University waved Palestinian and Iraqi flags.

“With all that is happening to our people in Gaza… of course I must be among the first to come to raise our voice,” student Aya Kader, 20, said. “It is very positive to see the Palestinian flag being waved at American universities,” she said.

The weeks-long pro-Palestinian protests that have swept campuses across the United States have “encouraged us”, she added.

Students and professors also carried banners calling for a “free Palestine”, with some wearing the keffiyeh scarf that has long been a symbol of the Palestinian cause.

“We are here to tell them to stop the killing and to thank the free voices around the world,” said Professor Jomaa Salman, head of the engineering faculty. “If the storming of Columbia University had happened in another country, especially in a third world country, they would have moved heaven on earth.”