Cairo sends delegation to Israel talks

Thirty-three arrests were reported at the university. Indiana University referred enquiries to Indiana State Police, which had not responded at the time of writing.

Police also made dozens of arrests at a protest at the University of Texas in Austin earlier this week, with clips showing officers charging the crowd on horseback.

The University of South California in Los Angeles closed its campus and cancelled the annual graduation ceremony after police broke up a protest and made 93 arrests.

The trend traces its origin to Columbia University in New York, where university president Minouche Shafik called police last week to clear a camp, which was swiftly re-established.

Students at dozens of other universities organised to follow Columbia’s example, networking through Zoom calls, a process spurred on by the spectacle of police storming the camp at Columbia’s Manhattan campus. “We’re standing here today because we’re inspired by the students at Columbia, who we consider to be the heart of the student movement,” said Malak Afaneh, a law student and spokesperson for a camp at the University of California, Berkeley. Some Jewish groups and US officials have accused the Columbia camp of promoting antisemitism, citing clips of activists singing songs such as “Burn Tel Aviv”. Organisers say the protest is peaceful and has a large Jewish presence.

More than 500 pro-Palestinian activists have been arrested this week in total, according to a tally by Reuters, from at least 11 American universities.

Egypt has sent a high-level delegation to Israel with the hope of brokering a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in Gaza, an Egyptian official has said.

At the same time, Cairo warned that a possible Israeli offensive focused on the Gazan city of Rafah on the border with Egypt could have catastrophic consequences for regional stability.

Egypt’s top intelligence official, Abbas Kamel, is leading the delegation and plans to discuss a “new vision” with Israel for a prolonged ceasefire in Gaza, an Egyptian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

As the war drags on and casualties mount, there has been growing international pressure for Hamas and Israel to reach an agreement on a ceasefire.

Yesterday’s talks focused at first on a limited exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners, and the return of a significant number of displaced Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza “with minimum restrictions”, the Egyptian official said.

The hope is that negotiations will then continue, with the goal of a larger deal to end the war, he said.

The official said mediators are working on a compromise that will answer most of both parties’ main demands.