Students across the United States marched and set up tents at dozens of universities to protest the months-long war in Gaza and called on US President Joe Biden. Rallies also occured in the German capital, Berlin.
Twenty-five people were arrested Saturday for trespassing at the University of Virginia when police confronted pro-Palestinian protesters who refused to remove tents from the campus. Protesters also chanted “Free Palestine,” and university police said on X that an “unlawful assembly” had been declared in the area, The Times of Israel said.
A press release from the University of Virginia said the protesters violated several university rules, including setting up tents Friday night and using amplified sound. School president Jim Ryan said:
Unfortunately, a small group today made a choice to willingly break the rules after being given many opportunities to comply, and they then refused to leave the site voluntarily. I sincerely wish it were otherwise, but this repeated and intentional refusal to comply with reasonable rules intended to secure the safety, operations, and rights of the entire university community left us with no other choice than to uphold the neutral application and enforcement of those rules.
In the end, Virginia State Police were asked to help with enforcement.
When police arrived, the students were thrown to the ground, grabbed by the arms and sprayed with a chemical irritant, Laura Goldblatt, an assistant professor of English and global studies who helped the student demonstrators, told The Washington Post:
Our concern since this began has been the safety of our students. Students are not safe right now.
The Chicago Police Department said dozens of people were also arrested for criminal trespassing outside the Art Institute of Chicago during a demonstration Saturday after the institute called police to remove protesters it said were illegally occupying its property.
On Saturday, University of Michigan students chanted anti-war messages and waved flags during a graduation ceremony. They chanted, “Regents, regents, you can’t hide! You are funding genocide!” while holding signs, including one that read: “No universities left in Gaza.” But officials reported that no one was arrested and the protest was not a major obstacle to the nearly two-hour event, which drew tens of thousands of people, some of whom waved Israeli flags.
Indiana University’s student newspaper reported that pro-Palestinian protests briefly interrupted the main graduation ceremony when demonstrators shouted “free Palestine” and “resign” several times during speeches by IU President Pamela Whitten and Provost Rahul Shrivastav.
At Princeton, New Jersey, 18 students went on hunger strike in an attempt to push the university to divest from companies linked to Israel. One of them, senior David Chmielewski, said in an email that the strike began on Friday morning, with participants consuming only water, and will continue until the administration meets with the students with demands, including amnesty from criminal and disciplinary charges for the protesters.
Students at other colleges, including Brown and Yale, began similar hunger strikes earlier this year before the recent wave of encampments began. In Medford, Massachusetts, Tufts University students peacefully destroyed their encampment without police intervention on Friday night.
Overall, rallies have gathered on at least 40 US university campuses since 17 April, often setting up tent camps to protest the rising death toll in the Gaza Strip. Nearly 2,000 people have been detained in demonstrations reminiscent of protests against the Vietnam War, according to Reuters.
In addition to US cities, a demonstration in support of Palestine took place in the German capital on Saturday. Thousands of people gathered near the Wilmersdorf metro station to speak out against Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip and Germany’s supply of weapons to Tel Aviv. Demonstrators demanding an end to the genocide in Gaza chanted slogans: “Germany funds, Israel kills,” “Ceasefire now, freedom for Palestine” and “Stop the genocide.”
Worldwide protests have been sparked by the conflict, which began on 7 October when Hamas led a devastating cross-border attack on southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 253 hostages of all ages in Gaza. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, over 34,500 people in Gaza have been killed since the begining of the conflict.
