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This Is What Happened at Tulane’s Anti-Israel Encampment
While colleges generally pride themselves on being included on various lists, Tulane has now joined a list nobody wants to be on: one of the growing list of American universities that has had an anti-Israel encampment on its campus.
On Monday, April 29, a mob of anti-Israel protesters descended on Tulane’s campus, occupying and setting up a tented encampment on the lawn outside Gibson Hall. Tulane’s anti-Israel encampment is part of a nationwide protest movement in which anti-Israel students and outside activists are occupying university property, disrupting the educational process, and threatening and intimidating Jewish and pro-Israel students.
These protesters at Tulane are not peaceful. All night, they spewed antisemitic slogans on megaphones, chided police officers, and tried to instigate fights with Jewish counter-protesters and observers across the street.
They chanted “From the river to the sea,” a slogan deemed antisemitic by the US Congress. They held signs expressing their solidarity with terrorist groups, bearing slogans such as “long live the Palestinian resistance.” One of their encampment tents featured a sign with a red upside down triangle, a dog-whistle symbol that denotes support for Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups.
Jewish Tulane students were spat on and threatened in the street. Several members of the anti-Israel mob were arrested for setting up tents and clashing with police, and charged with trespassing and battery on police officers.
Tulane University announced in an email that seven protesters were arrested by Tulane Police officers, and that Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the group responsible for the protest, has been subsequently suspended from campus. However, the email failed to mention that the mob was still raging and occupying campus, and did not mention any plan to remove them before the situation worsened. In a separate email, Michael Fitts, the president of Tulane, addressed the Tulane community around 3 am on Monday night, condemning the protesters in broad terms, but refusing to comment on if and when they would be removed.
Eventually, in a coordinated effort between Tulane Police, New Orleans police, and Louisiana state troopers, Tulane took down the unlawful encampment early Wednesday morning. Although this may be a short-term solution to the problem, it does not quell the underlying issue on college campuses. The anti-Israel, pro-Hamas movement remains lurking in the crevices of college campuses across the country, and they have shown that they are not afraid to trespass, vandalize, and intimidate Jewish students to achieve their radical agenda.
This was not the first disruptive, hateful anti-Israel protest on Tulane’s campus. On October 26, in the immediate aftermath of the horrifying October 7 Hamas massacre, the same group of protesters descended upon the outskirts of Tulane’s campus in a protest that ended with Jewish students being hospitalized and blood spilled on the street. The clash at the October protest led to several of the anti-Israel protesters being charged with hate crimes for their actions on that day.
Despite knowing this latest protest was coming, Tulane was clearly underprepared, and completely lost control of their campus.
This week’s events should not have come as a surprise. SDS has spent the last few months ratcheting up its rhetoric, and the last several days making clear its plans to copy the encampment movement that is spreading across college campuses. Tulane also knew based on events at other universities that this is not a peaceful movement.
At the University of Florida, protesters were arrested for battery of police officers. At George Washington University, protesters smashed through police barriers and clashed with officers. At UCLA, anti-Israel protesters at an encampment linked arms to prevent Jewish students from freely entering their own campus. Pro-Hamas protesters at Columbia University used hammers to bash in the windows of a university building, entering and occupying the site and even holding a facilities worker hostage before later releasing him.
These violent, pro-terror protests and encampments signal a turning point in America. Leftist and anti-Israel groups are no longer willing to engage in discourse or discussion with people who think differently from them. They have turned to violence and instigation. Universities have succumbed to the mobs occupying their campuses, and have refused to enforce their own rules on trespassing, illegal protests, and protecting Jewish students.
I call on Tulane University and all other universities faced with anti-Israel agitators to act swiftly to remove these agitators and not to allow mob rule to reign. The eyes of all Jewish students in America are on you.
Nathaniel Miller is a Tulane University student, where he is the president of the Tulane Israel Public Affairs Committee, and is a CAMERA fellow.
The post This Is What Happened at Tulane’s Anti-Israel 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.