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 16 protesters were arrested as police looked through tents set up in the encampment at Beinecke Plaza, where more than 250 agitators gathered Sunday night, the Yale Daily News reported.
Protest organizers told the paper that at least some of those arrested are students.
A member of the Yale Police Department told the Yale Daily News that the arrested protesters would be written up and released.
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Police were seen removing pro-Palestinian protesters camped out on Yale’s campus on Monday. (WTIC)
As police removed the protesters around the camp, a group of 200 demonstrators blocked the intersection of Grove and College Streets, the college newspaper reported. Video from the scene shows members of the group holding “Free Palestine” signs and singing, “We will not be moved.”
During the protests over the weekend, Sahar Tartak, a Jewish student journalist who is editor-in-chief of the Yale Free Press, says she was surrounded by a mob of protesters and jabbed in the eye by a protester wielding a Palestinian flag.
“One of the students, whose face was covered in a keffiyeh, took a Palestinian flag that he was holding, waved it in my face and hit my left eye,” Tartak told Fox News Digital on Sunday.
Police were seen removing pro-Palestinian protesters camped out on Yale’s campus on Monday. (WTIC)
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The removal of the protesters comes after a similar situation involving anti-Israel protesters on Columbia University’s campus in New York City on Thursday. At least 108 anti-Israel agitators were arrested as police broke up the encampment.
Students at Columbia were told in an overnight statement that all classes will be held virtually on Monday as anti-Israel protesters take over the campus with another encampment.
Pro-Palestinian protesters on Yale’s campus on Monday morning. (WTIC)
Such demonstrations have exploded across college campuses in recent months out of protest at Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which in turn is a reaction to Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israel that saw 1,200 people killed and around 240 taken hostage.
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Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry claims that the war has killed at least 34,097 Palestinians and wounded another 76,980, though Israel has disputed these figures. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between combatants and civilians in its count.
Fox News Digitals’ Bradford Betz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
