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Bowdoin College Lifts Suspensions on Anti-Israel Students After Building Takeover, Places Them on Probation
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 in Brunswick, Maine has imposed light disciplinary sanctions on eight students it identified as ringleaders of an unauthorized protest in which the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) took over and occupied an administrative building earlier this month.
On Friday, The Bowdoin Orient reported that the college settled on sentencing the students — who were given the sobriquet “Bowdoin Eight” by their collaborators after the incident — to probation. It also restored their permission to attend class and reside on campus, which they were barred from doing during the processing of their cases while serving interim suspensions
As previously reported, the students, members of the school’s SJP chapter, stormed Smith Union and installed an encampment there in response to US President Donald Trump’s proposing that the US “take over” the Gaza Strip and transform it into a hub for tourism and economic dynamism. The roughly 50 students residing inside the building had vowed not to leave until Bowdoin agreed to adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
Following the action, Bowdoin officials promptly moved to deescalate the situation by counseling the students to mind the “gravity of situation” in which they placed themselves, with senior associate dean Katie Toro-Ferrari warning that their behavior “could put them on the path where they are jeopardizing their ability to remain as Bowdoin students.” However, the Orient said the students continued to flood Smith Union anyway. One student, Olivia Kenney, proclaimed that “Bowdoin does not know how to handle us right now.”
School officials ultimately negotiated an end to the occupation of Smith Union without acceding to any of SJP’s demands for a boycott of Israel, and according to the Orient’s report, remained barred from operating on campus pending the completion of the disciplinary proceedings.
“[A] main goal for our office is to respect students as they navigate the student disciplinary process, while also upholding and respecting the Code of Community Standards, and the Bowdoin community as well,” Bowdoin College associate dean for community standards Jimmy Riley told the campus paper, declining to comment on the specifics of the punishments due to federal privacy laws.
Bowdoin College is one of several institutions to fend off an attempt to mount a prolonged occupation of school property.
In New York City, the anti-Zionist group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) on Wednesday occupied the Milbank Hall administrative building at Barnard College to protest recent disciplinary sanctions imposed on student activists who raided a classroom to spew pro-Hamas propaganda. Posting on Instagram, the group proclaimed that its members were “flooding the building despite Barnard shutting down campus.” Later, they reportedly assaulted a staff member, who, according to a source familiar with the situation, required medical attention in the hospital.
It has since been reported that the architects of that demonstration have also evaded accountability, as the college opted not to discipline them in exchange for their obeying an ultimatum to vacate Milbank the same evening in which they commandeered it.
“Columbia University has become the epicenter of antisemitic hatred in the United States,” StopAntisemitism executive director Liora Rez wrote to the US Department of Justice on Thursday, calling for action by the federal government. “The school, along with New York’s elected officials, should be ashamed for allowing the cesspool of antisemitism to fester in a city where Jewish people are such an integral part of the community.”
Earlier this month, SJP at Swarthmore College invaded the school’s Parrish Hall dressed like Hamas fighters, their faces wrapped with and concealed by keffiyehs. The move came as a surprise. While the group had announced an “emergency rally” scheduled for noon that day, there was little indication that it planned on commandeering the building and remaining inside of it indefinitely.
By the time the college formally warned the students that their behavior would trigger disciplinary measures, they had shouted slogans through bullhorns, attempted to break into offices that had been locked to keep them out, and pounded the doors of others that refused to admit them access.
Meanwhile, SJP collaborators reportedly circumvented security’s lockdown of the building to smuggle food inside. Several students then grew impatient and attempted to end the lockdown themselves by storming the building, and in doing so caused a physical altercation with security, whom they proceeded to pelt with expletives and other imprecations.
Swarthmore has temporarily suspended the group’s permission to operate on the campus while school officials complete an investigation of the incident.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Bowdoin College Lifts Suspensions on Anti-Israel Students After Building Takeover, Places Them on Probation 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.