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Brown University Investigating Anti-Israel Students, Groups Over Conduct Protesting Vote Against BDS
Illustrative: More than 200 Brown University students gathered outside University Hall where roughly 40 students sat inside demanding the school divest from weapons manufacturers amid the Israel-Hamas war. Photo: Amy Russo / USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
Brown University has launched investigations of anti-Israel groups and individual students following their riotous conduct during a protest of the Brown Corporation that was held on Friday.
Staged outside the Warren Alpert Medical School to inveigh against the Corporation’s recent rejection of a proposal to adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement — which aims to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination — the demonstration saw the Ivy League students engage in harassment and intimidation, according to a community notice first shared by the Brown Daily Herald and later obtained by The Algemeiner. The protesters repeatedly struck a bus transporting the Corporation’s trustees from the area, shouted expletives at them, and even lodged a “a racial epithet … toward a person of color.”
Other trustees were stalked to their destinations while some were obstructed from entering their bus, according to the missive by Russell Carey, Brown’s interim vice president for campus life and executive vice president of planning and policy. The official added that the students — many of whom are members of Students for Justice in Palestine, which has links to terrorist organizations, and its spin-off, Brown Divest Coalition (BDC) — harmed not only the trustees but also the university as an institution of higher learning.
“No member of the Brown community would want or expect to be treated in the manner some of our members experienced on Friday, and it was troubling to read in media reports the express intent of some organizers to provoke discomfort that ultimately targeted individuals,” Carey wrote. “Disciplinary sanctions will be imposed where violations of conduct codes are found.”
He added, “As we continue to navigate challenging times on campus and in the nation, our resolve and our principles as a compassionate learning community will continue to be tested. I am hopeful that members of the Brown community will engage in discussion with each other about these challenges and commit to treat each other with respect and dignity.”
Speaking to the Herald, anti-Israel activists denied any wrongdoing and accused Carey of inciting an “attempt to attack and defame student protesters holding the Corporation accountable to their decision to continue to invest in companies enabling genocide and apartheid.” Framing themselves as victims, the students added that the Brown Corporation should be “deeply ashamed.”
As The Algemeiner previously reported, Brown University earlier this month voted down a proposal — muscled onto the agenda of its annual meeting by an anti-Zionist group which attempted to hold the university hostage with threats of illegal demonstrations and other misconduct — to divest from 10 companies linked to Israel.
“The Corporation also discussed the broader issue of whether taking a stance on a geopolitical issue through divestment is consistent with Brown’s mission of education and scholarship. The Corporation reaffirmed that Brown’s mission is to discover, communicate, and preserve knowledge. It is not to adjudicate or resolve global conflicts,” university president Christina Paxson and Brown Corporation chancellor Brian Moynihan said in a letter commenting on the vote. “Whether you support, oppose, or have no opinion on the decision of the Corporation, we hope you will do so with a commitment to sustaining, nurturing, and strengthening the principles that have long been at the core of our teaching and learning community.”
Pro-Hamas students continue to act on their vow to escalate unruly behavior on college campuses across the country, drawing reprisals from administrators determined to avoid a repeat of the events of last academic year, when the “activists” commandeered administrative buildings and illegally occupied campus property.
Last week, Pomona College in Claremont, California levied severe disciplinary sanctions, ranging from expulsion to banishment, against 12 students who participated in illegally occupying and vandalizing the Carnegie Hall administrative building on the anniversary of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
The news was first reported by an Instagram accounted operated by Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA), the group which led the assault on the building. PDfA acknowledged that “property crimes” were perpetrated but maintained that the college lacked evidence to identify the offenders. Noting that PDfA members concealed their identities with masks, it charged that Pomona president G. Gabrielle Starr has resorted to “indiscriminately” punishing minority students, as well as depriving them of housing and food, for the sake of upholding fascism.
Starr, who is an African American woman, told a different story, however, accusing the group of “violation of our collective life on campus” in a statement which noted that the pro-Hamas student group was aided by non-student adults who managed to gain access to the campus.
“The destruction in Carnegie Hall was extensive, and the harm done to individuals and our mission was so great,” Starr wrote. “Starting this week, disciplinary letters are going out to students from Pomona and other Claremont Colleges who have been identified as taking part in the takeover of Carnegie Hall. Student groups affiliated with this incident are also under investigation.”
Other potential Islamist-inspired crimes perpetrated by students at Harvard University and Princeton University to mark the one year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught have not yet led to disciplinary charges.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Brown University Investigating Anti-Israel Students, Groups Over Conduct Protesting Vote Against BDS 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.