UP IN ARMS

In the US, student protests and arrests are signalling a wider political battle with bitter historical echoes. In London, several mass marches have led to disputed claims the city is becoming a no-go zone for Jewish people. What is going on inside the Gaza demonstrations - and where might they be leading?

- Edward Helmore

Student protests on US university campuses over Israel's war on Gaza showed little sign of letting up last weekend, with protesters vowing to continue until their demands for US educational bodies to disentangle from companies profiting from the conflict are met.

In what is perhaps the most significant student movement since the anti-Vietnam campus protests of the late 1960s, the conflict between pro-Palestinian students and university administrators has revealed an entire subset of conflicts.

The drone of helicopters over New York's Washington Square Park last Monday previewed the arrival of the Strategic Response Group (SRG), the New York police department's specialist counter-terrorism and political protests division, which set about arresting more than 120 New York University students and faculty members who had been circulating on a campus sidewalk to the chant of: "Israel bombs, NYU pays, how many kids have you killed today?" 

After several years of semi-seasonal student marches through the city to voice positions on topics from racial justice to global heating to gun control, protests over the Israel-Gaza war are the latest headache for authorities. New York's mayor, Eric Adams, blamed the NYU protests on "professional agitators"; the university fenced off the square where students customarily gather.

Several days earlier, and more than 100 blocks uptown, Columbia University officials had warned student members of the Gaza Solidarity encampment that while they had a right to protest, they were not allowed "to disrupt campus life or harass and intimidate fellow students".