Columbia cancels classes and police storm Yale as pro-Palestine protests get violent: Live

Students from Columbia and Barnard opposed to the ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza gathered on Wednesday to form an “encampment” on Columbia’s south lawn.

On Thursday morning — approximately 24 hours after the encampment was formed — Ms Hirsi and approximately one hundred others were arrested when Columbia President Minouche Shafik authorised the NYPD to forcibly shut down the demonstration.

Google fired 28 employees early last week following protests on Tuesday in the company’s offices against their cloud contract with the Israeli government.

Dozens of Google workers made their way inside Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office at the Sunnyvale office, as well as on the 10th-floor commons in New York City, according to No Tech for Apartheid, the organisation that led the protests.

Google announced that it had since dismissed 28 workers from employment at the company after the protests, claiming they physically hindered the work of others and displayed “unacceptable behaviour”.

“A small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a few of our locations,” a Google spokesperson told The Independent on Thursday.

Amelia Neath has the story:

Jonathan Lederer, a sophomore at Columbia University, said he and his friends were chased off campus after attending the pro-Palestinian protests with Israeli and American flags.

In an essay for The Free Press, Mr Lederer writes that his group was chased out of campus and told to “go back to Poland.” Mr Lederer also said “two solid objects” were thrown at him during the protest.

Police Chief John Chell later noted that the students who were arrested “were peaceful.”

“To put this in perspective, the students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner,” Mr Chell said, per the Columbia Spectator.

Keith Gessen, a professor for Columbia Journalism School, backed up an NBC News correspondent who reported she did not see any violence or aggression at the school’s pro-Palestine encampments late last week.

“Our team spent long hours reporting on and around Columbia’s campus on Thursday & Friday…I didn’t see a single instance of violence or aggression on the lawn or at the student encampment,” Antonia Hylton of NBC News wrote on X.

“If you’re watching or sharing videos from the last few days, provide context,” she continued. “The public protests happening on the street are not the same as the encampment inside. Don’t imply students at Columbia/Barnard are involved in events that they were not present or responsible for.”

Mr Gessen re-tweeted her, noting her reporting “is correct.”

These comments come after Columbia University’s president called in the New York Police Department late last week. Officers arrested some 100 students.

Police Chief John Chell later noted that the students who were arrested “were peaceful…and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner,” per the Columbia Spectator.

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s daughter was one of several students arrested amid the pro-Palestinian protests staged by Columbia University and Barnard College students last week.

Isra Hirsi, daughter of the progressive congresswoman from Minnesota, said she had no disciplinary record prior to her arrest.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fellow progressive representative and ally to Ms Omar, criticised her arrest.

“What is going on here @BarnardCollege @Columbia?” Ms Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X. “How does a student with no disciplinary record suddenly get to a suspension less than 24 hours after a nonviolent protest?”

Over the weekend, student-led protest encampments attracted national attention, leading to more pro-Palestinian protests taking place outside of the closed campus and a police presence. Students on colleges and universities have initiated protests in solidarity.

But as tensions mount, some Jewish students have reported antisemitic harassment toward them.

One video, posted on X, showed a masked protestor telling a student to, “Go back to Poland”. A rabbi affiliated with the school told a group of nearly 300 Jewish students to go home until tensions improved.

Ariana Baio has the story:

The arrests happened after nearly pro-Palestine 200 protestors gathered on campus to urge Yale to divest from military weapons manufacturers, the independent Yale Daily News reported on Monday morning.

The protestors had been camped out on Beinecke Plaza on Yale University’s campus for three days.

Cops first began by warning protestors they risked being arrested if they didn’t clear out before cuffing and arresting a handful of people – including students, according to Yale Daily News.

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