Anti-war protesters dig in at U.S. campuses as arrests mount
As students protesting the Israel-Hamas war at college campuses across the United States dug in on Saturday and dozens of demonstrators were arrested, some universities moved to shut down encampments after reports of antisemitic activity.
With the death toll mounting in the war in Gaza, protesters nationwide are demanding that schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies they say are enabling the conflict. Some Jewish students say the protests have veered into antisemitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus.
Police in riot gear cleared an encampment on the campus of Northeastern University in Boston. Massachusetts State Police said about 102 protesters were arrested and will be charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct.
Protesters said they were given about 15 minutes to disperse before being arrested.
As workers pulled down tents and bagged up the debris from the encampment, several dozen people across from the encampment chanted, “Let the kids go,” and slogans against the war in Gaza. They booed as police cars passed and taunted the officers who guarded the encampment.
The school said the demonstration, which began two days ago, had become “infiltrated by professional organizers” with no affiliation to the school and antisemitic comments, including “Kill the Jews,” had been made.
“We cannot tolerate this kind of hate on our campus,” the university said in statement on X.
The Huskies for a Free Palestine student group said counterprotesters were to blame for the slurs and no student protesters “repeated the disgusting hate speech.”
Students at the protest said a counter-protester attempted to instigate hate speech but insisted their event was peaceful and, like many across the country, was aimed at drawing attention to what they described as the “genocide” in Gaza and their university’s complicity in the war.
The president of nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology
said the encampment there had become a “potential magnet for disruptive outside protesters” and was taking hundreds of staff hours to keep safe.
“We have a responsibility to the entire MIT community and it is not possible to safely sustain this level of effort,” MIT president Sally Kornbluth said. “We are open to further discussion about the means of ending the encampment. But this particular form of expression needs to end soon.”
Indiana University campus officers and state police arrested 23 people at an encampment on the school’s Bloomington campus. Tents and canopies had been erected Friday night at Dunn Meadow in violation of school policy, university police said.
Members of the group were detained after refusing to remove the structures. Charges ranged from criminal trespass to resisting law enforcement.
At the University of Pennsylvania on Friday, interim president J. Larry Jameson called for an encampment of protesters on the west Philadelphia campus to be disbanded. About 40 tents remained in place on Saturday.