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Anti-Israel Students at Bowdoin College to Protest Suspensions Over ‘Gaza Encampment’

Anti-Zionist Bowdoin College students storming the Smith Union administrative building on the evening of Feb. 6, 2025 to occupy it in protest of what they said are the college’s links to Israel. Photo: Screenshot
Bowdoin College’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter will hold on Tuesday a mass rally to protest disciplinary charges brought against an estimated 50 student-members who received interim suspensions and other sanctions for illegally occupying an administrative building earlier this month.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, SJP installed an encampment inside Smith Union to demand a boycott of Israel and signal its opposition to US President Donald Trump’s proposing that Gazans who were displaced by the Israel-Hamas war be resettled elsewhere while the Palestinian enclave is transformed into a hub for tourism and job creation. Bowdoin, moving quickly to quell the disruption, persuaded its students to abandon the effort after just four days by levying interim suspensions on several dozen of them and notifying their families.
The consequences so far have stuck, SJP decried in a statement which alleged that some students are now ineligible to dwell in their dormitories and attend class. This week, the group continued, eight of them will participate in hearings that will determine whether they receive full suspensions. SJP is calling for them to be amnestied and restored to good standing.
“Our peers who bravely remained in the encampment have been evicted from campus, unable to attend class (virtually or in person), and are now being subject to a flawed and non-transparent disciplinary process, all for continuing Bowdoin’s long history of student activism,” SJP posted on Instagram on Sunday. “We will not be silent as our friends face retaliation for standing against a genocide.”
It continued, “Walk out of class with us at 4:30 pm on Tuesday, Feb. 18 and join us for a rally outside Moulton Union to demand amnesty for the Bowdoin Eight.”
Bowdoin College has previously said that it will not tolerate unlawful occupations of its buildings.
“We heard from some members of the our community that these events have left them feeling vulnerable,” college president Safa Zaki said in a statement to the campus community, explaining that SJP transgressed “policies governing building use and student behavior.”
She continued, “These rules are not symbolic. They are designed to ensure that members of the community can feel welcome and safe in every space on campus and have fair access to those spaces.”
The college — located in Brunswick, Maine and once the subject of a landmark study which accused it of promoting the excesses of left-wing ideology — is not the only higher education institution that has been convulsed by anti-Israel activity this semester.
Columbia University was a victim of infrastructural sabotage last month, when an extremist anti-Zionist group flooded the toilets of an academic building with concrete to mark the anniversary of an alleged killing of a Palestinian child. The targeted facilities were located on several floors of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), according to Keren Yarhi-Milo, dean of the school, who addressed the matter, calling the behavior “deplorable, disruptive, and deeply unsettling, as our campus is a space we cherish for learning teaching, and working, and it will not be tolerated.”
Numerous reports indicate the attack may have been the premeditated result of planning sessions which took place many months ago at an event held by Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) — a literary society, according to the Washington Free Beacon. During the event, the Free Beacon reported, ADP distributed literature dedicated to “aspiring revolutionaries” who wish to commit seditious acts. Additionally, a presentation was given in which complete instructions for the exact kind of attack which struck Columbia were shared with students.
In a separate incident on Feb. 5, roughly 50 members of the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, along with the group Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine, at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) amassed on the property of UC Regent Jay Sures and threatened that he must “divest now or pay.” As part of the demonstration, the students imprinted their hands, which had been submerged in red paint to symbolize the spilling of blood, all over Sures’ garage door and cordoned the area with caution tape.
UCLA responded to their vandalism and intimidation by imposing interim suspensions on both groups.
Republicans in Washington, DC have said that anti-Zionist extremism on college campuses “will no longer be tolerated in the Trump administration.” Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has enacted a slew of policies aimed at reining in their disruptive and discriminatory behavior.
Continuing work started during his first administration — when Trump issued Executive Order 13899 to ensure that civil rights law apply equally Jews — Trump’s recent “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism” calls for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” The order also requires each government agency to write a report explaining how it can be of help in carrying out its enforcement. Another major provision of the order calls for the deportation of extremist “alien” student activists, whose support for terrorist organizations, intellectual and material, such as Hamas contributed to fostering antisemitism, violence, and property destruction.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Anti-Israel Students at Bowdoin College to Protest Suspensions Over ‘Gaza Encampment’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.