Police officers have arrested students participating in a pro-Hamas rally at Yale University. The arrests occurred on Monday after a week of protests calling on the university to cut ties with manufacturers of military weapons amid the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
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This development comes against the backdrop of nationwide pro-Hamas protests that cropped up after Hamas ignited the war by launching a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, killing over 1,000 men, women, and children.
Police began removing anti-Israel protesters from an encampment on Yale’s campus early Monday after a week of protests calling for the university to divest from military weapon manufacturers.
At least 47 protesters were arrested as police looked through tents set up in the encampment near Beinecke Plaza, Yale Police Chief Anthony Campbell told the Yale Daily News reported. Beinecke Plaza is where more than 250 agitators had gathered Sunday night.
Protest organizers told the paper that at least some of those arrested are students.
Campbell told the Yale Daily News that the arrested protesters would be charged with trespassing, a Class A misdemeanor, and would be released once they are processed.
Reports indicate that the protesters had been warned that they could be arrested for their continued trespassing.
Protesters at Yale had been warned twice before the arrests – once at 11 p.m. Sunday and again before 7 a.m. Monday, the police chief told the Yale Daily News.
Journalists from the publication were also threatened with arrest if they did not move from the plaza, the independent campus newspaper said.
“Cops have gathered at Beinecke Plaza, where pro-Palestine protesters urging Yale to divest from military weapons manufacturers set up tents overnight – the third night of their ongoing encampment,” it reported.
Despite the warnings from police, many protesters refused to leave. Some locked arms around a flagpole and sang, “We Shall Not Be Moved” as officers began arrests, according to footage provided to CNN by Yale graduate and independent journalist Thomas Birmingham.
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About 350 protesters had been blocking the street near the campus, holding signs and chanting various anti-Israel slogans.
Other students protested as their fellow pupils were being arrested, continuing to block the streets.
The situation at Yale escalated into violence when a pro-Hamas protester stabbed a Jewish female student journalist in the eye with a Palestinian flag.
The individual who assaulted the Jewish student has not yet been identified. The incident has prompted criticism against the university’s leadership for not doing enough to address the rise of antisemitism on its campus since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Sahar Tartak, the editor-in-chief of the Yale Free Press, was covering the protest – which saw hundreds of students camping at the campus in support of Palestinians – when she was suddenly surrounded by demonstrators.
Tartak said she and a friend were signaled out for wearing Hasidic Jewish attire as the crowd formed a blockade around them to interfere with their filming.
“There’s hundreds of people taunting me and waving the middle finger at me, and then this person waves a Palestinian flag in my face and jabs it in my eye,” Tartak told The Post.
“When I tried to yell and go after him, the protesters got in a line and stopped me,” she added.
Tartak, who was shopping for an eyepatch when speaking with The Post, said she tried to report the assault to campus police, but they told her there was nothing they could do.
Instead, she just got an ambulance ride to the hospital to get her eye checked out.
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These demonstrations have been occurring on college campuses across the nation, especially at Ivy League institutions. Columbia University, in particular, has garnered national attention as students formed an encampment to protest against Israel. The situation at Columbia became so prevalent that even the Biden administration issued a condemnation.