Free speech How the global protest movement met repression and resistance

The ceasefire between Hamas and Israel has been met with joy and relief across the Middle East and beyond. Over the past two years, outrage at Israel’s war in Gaza has erupted across Europe and the US, manifesting itself in university campus protests, massive marches through countless capitals and the disruption of major sporting events.

- By Guardian reporters

Even as hopes rise of an end to the war, international anger over Israel’s actions in Gaza, which have been deemed a genocide by a UN commission of inquiry, remains raw.

While the fury that fuels them has been shared and ubiquitous, the protests - and authorities’ responses to them - have varied considerably from country to country.

In the US, growing pro-Palestinian activism has been met with arrests, legal action and mounting threats, offering a pretext for Donald Trump’s unprecedented attack on free speech and catalysing what many view as the country's descent into authoritarianism.

In the early months of the war, thousands of people, many of them Jewish, took part in protests. After students at Columbia University set up a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus in the spring of 2024, dozens more followed at universities across the country. But bowing to pressure from legislators, donors and pro-Israel critics, many universities responded harshly to the encampments, calling police on to campuses, which led to thousands of arrests.