A deadline to break up a sit-in at Columbia University to protest the war on Gaza has expired

The New York Times reports that the deadline set by Columbia University in New York to break up a camp of students protesting Israel's ongoing war on Gaza More than 6 months have passed with no signs of police intervention to quell the pro-Palestinian demonstration.

The university administration had earlier announced that it was in talks with the students organizing the camp to reach an agreement by the midnight local time deadline, after which the university will consider alternative options to break up the sit-in.

As the deadline expired, some students began removing their tents and heading to nearby buildings, while others declared their determination to continue the sit-in, the newspaper said.

The New York Times noted that police were present around campus but there was no indication that they were preparing to break up the rally, and quoted the group Columbia for Justice for Palestine as saying that the university had threatened to call in the National Guard to disperse the protesters.

Call the National Guard

While Republican U.S. Senators Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton have called for National Guard units to be called in to confront the students, the New York governor's spokeswoman denied any intention to call in the National Guard to break up the sit-in at Columbia University.

Meanwhile, students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston are continuing an open-ended sit-in to protest what they see as Genocide for the Palestinian people, emphasizing that they will not stop protesting until the university's ties with the Israeli army are severed.

The students raised slogans denouncing the Israeli massacres in the Gaza Strip and demanding an immediate end to the war on the Gaza Strip. They also raised a petition with their demands, including stopping cooperation between the university and the Israeli army, emphasizing that 70% of university students agree with this demand according to a poll conducted in this regard.

Earlier, US police arrested dozens of students as they dispersed protests at US universities, including Columbia and Yale.

Biden comments

Meanwhile, the White House deputy spokeswoman said that President Joe Biden spoke about what he described as the vile chants circulating over the weekend at student demonstrations on U.S. campuses.

The US spokesperson added that Biden called for confronting the alarming outbreak of anti-Semitic rhetoric and considered silence to be complicity.

He added that every American has the right to peaceful protest, but said calls for violence and physical intimidation against Jewish students and the Jewish community are anti-Semitic and have no place on any campus or anywhere in the United States.

Source: Al Jazeera + Agencies + American Press