Over 100 students arrested in California, Texas as Gaza protests intensify

The arrests on Wednesday in the southern city of Austin and western city of Los Angeles came as students at Harvard University and Brown University on the east coast also defied threats of action and set up encampments in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, said the protesters “belong in jail” adding that any students joining in what he called “hate-filled, anti-Semitic protests” should be expelled.

“These students were shouting ‘free Palestine’, that’s all,” he said

Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds, reporting from the university, however, said that “this protest against the war on Gaza, was entirely peaceful”.

On the other side of the country, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hundreds of students at Harvard University set up their own encampment at Harvard Yard, despite the university closing the space and threatening “disciplinary action” against students for setting up tents without prior permission

The New York Times said students there had erected some 40 tents by Wednesday afternoon, despite the university threatening proceedings against the students if they did not clear out.

He said he intended to demand US President Joe Biden “take action”, and warned that the demonstrations “place a target on the backs of Jewish students in the United States”.