In a wave of anti-Israel demonstrations, elite universities across the United States witnessed encampments and protests, causing disruptions and prompting arrests. At Columbia University, tensions escalated as antisemitic and pro-terror demonstrations coincided with the beginning of Passover, leading to a strong police presence outside the campus gates.

Columbia University, which conducted classes remotely due to the weekend's hateful rhetoric surrounding a pro-Gaza encampment on the South Lawn, faced incidents such as a young woman holding a sign implying Jewish students as the next targets of Al-Qasam and anti-Israel agitators chanting slogans like "We are Hamas" and "We don't want no Zionists here." Strikingly, Columbia University leadership expressed a preference for the NYPD not to be present on campus, but photographs from the scene indicate a police presence and arrests being made on Monday afternoon.

Meanwhile, a similar demonstration occurred outside a New York University building. Unlike Columbia University, NYU does not have an enclosed campus space, resulting in tents bearing anarchy symbols and a sign connecting Black Rock to "Israel Apartheid" being pitched along the sidewalk. Protesters banged pots and pans, picketed in a circle, and held signs with messages like "Honor the Martyrs of Palestine" and "We are all SJP" in reference to the anti-Israel group "Students for Justice in Palestine." It is worth noting that Columbia previously suspended its SJP chapter for staging an unauthorized die-in event on campus in November.

Encampment-style protests also appeared at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Emerson College. Photos showed tents near Emerson's Boston campus featuring signs with antisemitic slogans such as "from the river to the sea," calling for the eradication of the Jewish state, as well as messages proclaiming "No more money for Israel's crimes," "drop all charges on student activists," and "neutrality" as complicity, along with the Palestinian flag. CBS Boston captured aerial footage of anti-Israel agitators setting up an encampment on MIT's campus lawn. Notably, the MIT president is the only one among the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania who kept her job after failing to explicitly condemn calls for genocide during a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing in December.

At Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, about 45 protesters were arrested on Monday morning for misdemeanor trespassing after setting up tents on Beinecke Plaza and calling on the university to end any investments in defense companies doing business with Israel. Yale President Peter Salovey issued a statement expressing concerns about safety hazards and disruption of university work caused by protesters who defied directives and violated policies. School officials engaged with the protesters, giving them until the end of the weekend to vacate the plaza and issuing warnings on Monday morning before the police intervened.

Following the arrests at Yale, a large group of demonstrators reconvened and blocked a street near campus without any reports of violence or injuries. The arrested protesters were released on promises to appear in court later.

These protests and encampments have ignited a heated debate surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have exposed deep divisions within the campus communities. University administrations continue to grapple with striking a balance between allowing free speech and maintaining order on their campuses.