US student protests over Gaza intensify despite arrests

Students at a growing number of U.S. colleges continue to gather in pro-Palestinian encampments with a unified demand that Israel end its war on Gaza and that universities to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

So far, police have arrested hundreds of student protesters at numerous colleges, including the University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia University in New York, among others.

The growing unrest on college campuses is also accompanied by a rise in antisemitism.

CNN reports that antisemitic acts have surged across America and particularly on campuses since October 7.

Islamophobia has also run rampant.

The recent surge in protests have in turn inflamed tensions, forcing leadership to decide when free speech on campus crosses a line and becomes threatening, CNN reports.

Several colleges have called the police on protesters, leading to the arrests of hundreds across multiple campuses.

On Wednesday, at the University of Texas at Austin, state troopers in riot gear, including some on horseback, began breaking up a group of protesters shortly after a demonstration.

The arrests on Wednesday in cities of Austin and Los Angeles came as students at Harvard University and Brown University on the east coast also defied threats of action and set up encampments in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Al Jazeera reported that protesters at Columbia University, the epicenter of demonstrations that began last week, said they won’t disperse until the school agrees to cut ties with Israeli universities and commits to divesting funds from Israel-linked entities, among other demands.

Tensions on multiple US campuses were sparked after Hamas’ October 7 attack, where militants killed about 1,200 people and took over 200 hostages. Israel retaliated on Gaza and has over the past six months killed more than 34,000 people.

When did the current conflict start?

CNN reports that the situation escalated last week at Columbia University when the university’s president, Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, testified before a House committee about the school’s response to charges of campus antisemitism. A pro-Palestinian protest kicked off on campus at the same time.

Following her testimony, Shafik requested in a letter released by the university that the New York City Police Department remove people who were encamped on the South Lawn of the campus who were “in violation of the University’s rules and policies” and trespassing.

More than 100 people were arrested.

The encampments were organized by Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a student-led coalition of more than 100 organizations, to protest what they describe as the university’s “continued financial investment in corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and military occupation of Palestine.”

Since last Thursday, other college campuses have faced similar protests and encampments, as well as arrests.

Pro-Palestinian encampments have been set up at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Emerson College, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Michigan and the University of California, Berkeley. On Wednesday, police arrested nearly 100 protesters at the University of Southern California after a dispersal order.

Yale University police arrested at least 45 protesters Monday while Harvard University closed Harvard Yard and officials at the school suspended a pro-Palestinian student organization for allegedly violating school policies, CNN reported.