Pro-Palestinian protests sweep US colleges
Dozens of protesters were arrested at New York University, Yale, and other universities across the US during pro-Palestine rallies
Columbia cancelled in-person classes, dozens of protesters were arrested at New York University and Yale, and the gates to Harvard Yard were closed to the public on Monday as some of the most prestigious US universities sought to defuse campus tensions over Israel’s war with Hamas.
Over 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on Columbia’s green were arrested last week, and similar encampments have sprouted up at universities around the country as schools struggle with where to draw the line between allowing free expression while maintaining safe and inclusive campuses.
At New York University, an encampment set up by students swelled to hundreds of protesters throughout the day on Monday. The school said it warned the crowd to leave, then called in the police after the scene became disorderly and the university said it learned of reports of “intimidating chants and several anti-semitic incidents.” Shortly after 8:30pm (local time), officers began making arrests.
“It’s a really outrageous crackdown by the university to allow the police to arrest students on our own campus,” said New York University law student Byul Yoon.
“Anti-semitism is never okay. That’s absolutely not what we stand for and that’s why there are so many Jewish comrades that are here with us today,” Yoon said.
The protests have pitted students against one another, with pro-Palestinian students demanding that their schools condemn Israel’s assault on Gaza and divest from companies that sell weapons to Israel. However, some Jewish students say much of the criticism of Israel has veered into antisemitism and made them feel unsafe, and they point out that Hamas is still holding hostages taken during the group’s October 7 invasion.
Hezbollah attacks Israel
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s Iranbacked Hezbollah group said on
Tuesday that it had launched a drone attack against Israeli military bases north of the city of Acre, in its deepest strike into Israeli territory since the Gaza war began.
The Israeli military said it had no knowledge of any of its facilities being hit by Hezbollah, but had said earlier on Tuesday that it intercepted two “aerial targets” off Israel’s northern coast.
Hezbollah said it acted in retaliation for an earlier Israeli attack killing one of its fighters.
The group published what appeared to be a satellite photo, with the location of the strike symbolised by a flash with a red circle around it that sat halfway between Acre and Nahariyya to the north. Israeli airstrikes killed two Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon, the military said earlier on Tuesday. Hezbollah later confirmed the death of one of its fighters, Hussein Azkoul, but provided no further details.
A separate Israeli strike overnight on Monday to Tuesday killed a fighter in Hezbollah’s elite unit, Radwan Forces, the military said, though Hezbollah has not confirmed his death.
Since October, Israeli strikes have killed about 270 Hezbollah fighters as well as about 50 civilians.
Hezbollah’s rocket and drone fire has killed about a dozen Israeli soldiers and half as many civilians.
The shelling has displaced tens of thousands on each side.
Israel strikes parts of northern Gaza
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes intensified across Gaza on Tuesday in some of the heaviest shelling in weeks, pounding the north from where the Israeli army had previously drawn down its troops, residents said.
Strikes by air and shelling from tanks on the ground were also reported in central and southern areas in what residents said were almost non-stop bombardments.
Overnight tanks made a new incursion east of Beit Hanoun on the northern edge of the Gaza
Strip, though they did not penetrate far into the city, residents and Hamas media said. Gunfire reached some schools causing panic among displaced residents sheltering there.
In Israel, where government offices and businesses were shut to celebrate the Jewish Passover holiday, incoming rocket alerts sounded in southern border towns, although no casualties were reported.
The armed wing of Islamic Jihad, a group allied to Hamas, claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks on Sderot and Nir Am, indicating fighters were still able to launch them almost 200 days into the war, which has flattened large swathes of the enclave and displaced almost all of its 2.3 million people.
Thick black smoke could be seen rising in northern Gaza from across the southern Israeli border.
Shelling was intense east of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia and continued on Tuesday in areas such as Zeitoun, one of Gaza City’s oldest suburbs, with residents reporting at least 10 strikes in a matter of seconds along the main road.
“It was one of those nights of horror that we have lived in at the start of the war. The bombing from tanks and planes didn’t stop,” said Um Mohammad, 53, a mother-of-six living 700 metres from Zeitoun.