Since April 18, over one thousand students, faculty members, and community supporters have been arrested at college campus protests across the country. Despite fierce repression from university administrators and police, new Gaza solidarity encampments, set up by students protesting Israel’s genocide and demanding their schools divest, are popping up every day.

Students have been threatened with arrest, suspension, and even expulsion for their participation in campus protests calling on their universities to disclose their financial holdings and divest from all financial ties to Israel and weapons manufacturing. On April 30, police in riot gear swept student antiwar encampments at Columbia and City College of New York, arresting nearly three hundred protesters. Violent police attacks on peaceful protesters have gone viral on social media, including harrowing footage of blood being hosed off from the walls at Emerson College in Boston and police tasing a protester while he was pinned to the ground and handcuffed at Emory University in Atlanta.

Last night, a mob of pro-Israel counterprotesters at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) launched an attack on the student encampment, launching fireworks directly into the camp, attempting to tear down students’ barricades, and brutally beating students. Campus security and police officers arrived on the scene but refused to intervene for an hour and a half.