In a surprising turn of events, Harvard University's anti-Israel tent encampment faced an unexpected obstacle overnight as sprinklers flooded protesters' tents. While demonstrations rocked campuses nationwide, Harvard's protesters found themselves disrupted by the sudden activation of sprinklers in the middle of the university's Cambridge campus.

The Harvard Crimson, a student-led paper, reported that the encampment's biggest threat to the protesters' stay did not come from administrators or university police officers, but rather from the campus sprinklers. The first sprinkler turned on just outside the encampment in Harvard Yard around 2:30 a.m., coinciding with a drop in temperatures to 36 degrees. Later, at around 4 a.m., another sprinkler located in the midst of the tents started spraying water, prompting students to hastily distribute buckets to contain the flooding.

According to the Harvard Crimson's live blog update at 4:05 a.m., two additional sprinklers turned on near Massachusetts Hall, causing some of the tents on the camp's edge to be drenched with freezing cold water. A video circulating on social media showed a student struggling to readjust a wet tarpaulin in a flooded tent. In response, protesters gathered to discuss how to handle the situation for another night, eventually relocating their tents and supplies to areas away from the sprinklers.

Harvard's Palestine Solidarity Committee took to Instagram to express their frustration, stating that some of the students' tents had been flooded by the 4 a.m. burst. Meanwhile, protests against Israel sprouted on campuses throughout the country, including Columbia University, New York University, Fashion Institute of Technology, and CUNY's City College.

On the same day, Princeton University's anti-Israel encampment failed to materialize when two graduate students were swiftly arrested just ten minutes into the demonstration, as reported by the Daily Princetonian. An arrest was made shortly after the initial tents were set up, which was accompanied by a speech by Professor Max Weiss, who struggled to be heard over patrolling helicopters. Weiss read a poem from a Palestinian writer, containing controversial statements suggesting the Jewish people "evolved backward" from being victims to victimizers.

At Emory University in Georgia, demonstrations took a violent turn as uniformed officers from the Atlanta Police Department descended on campus after an encampment was established on the main quad. Videos posted online depicted a protester being tackled, tased, and tear gas being used by the officers. Activists condemned the police's response and accused them of using excessive force against individuals simply camping on the school grounds.

In Boston, police arrested over 100 demonstrators at Emerson University after dismantling their encampment in the early hours of the morning. This resulted in the cancellation of classes for the day, with four officers sustaining injuries during the operation. At Northeastern University, police surrounded another encampment set up by students and faculty in the school's Centennial Common, although no arrests were made by Thursday afternoon.

Lastly, at the University of Southern California (USC), 93 student protesters were arrested on Wednesday during their demonstrations.

As the tensions surrounding Israel escalate on college campuses, both the protesters and administrators find themselves grappling with the challenges posed by these demonstrations.