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Yale University Students Abort Anti-Israel Encampment Attempts After Warning From Officials
Yalies4Palestine attempted to establish a so-called “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the Beinecke Plaza section of Yale University’s campus on Tuesday evening, prompting a quick disciplinary response from the administration.
The students were told in no uncertain terms that refusing to discontinue the activity by an 11 pm deadline set by administrators would result in disciplinary sanctions, according to a report by the Yale Daily News. Prior to that, they obstructed Jewish students’ right to walk through campus, according to videos posted to social media by a Jewish student at Yale.
Such action blocking Jews from parts of campus elsewhere has triggered a lawsuit in which the US Justice Department recently filed a statement of interest.
“The group’s activities violated Yale’s time, place, and manner polices,” a university spokesperson told the News when asked about the incident. “University officials clearly articulated Yale’s policies and the consequences of violating them.”
The students eventually left after Yale’s assistant vice president for university life, Pilar Montalvo, walked through the area distributing cards containing a message which implored students to “Please stop your current action immediately. If you do not, you may risk university disciplinary action and/or arrest” and a QR code for a webpage which explains Yale’s policies on expression and free assembly.
The cards triggered a paranoiac fit, the News reported. Upon receiving them, the students became suspicious that the QR code could be used to track and identity those who participated in the unauthorized protest. “Do not scan the QR code!” they began to chant. They left the area soon after, the paper added, clearing the way for public safety officers to photograph and remove the tents they had attempted to pitch.
According to the News, the protest was triggered by an upcoming off-campus event at which Israel’s controversial national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir — who has called for annexing the West Bank and the emigration of Gaza’s residents — will be hosted by Shabtai, a student group not formally recognized by the university.
Writing to The Algemeiner in a message titled “Yale Maintains Calm Campus and Takes Disciplinary Action,” the university took credit for preventing a style of protest that could have lasted for weeks and upended the campus during final exams. It also confirmed that disciplinary sanctions have already been meted out to several students who participated in Tuesday’s unauthorized demonstration despite having been punished for committing the same infraction in the past.
“University officials articulated Yale’s policies and the consequences of violating them and actively cleared the area, which has remained clear since that time,” a spokesperson wrote. “During the interaction, staff identified students who had been warned or disciplined in previous incidents that violated university policy. Those students have received written notice today that they are subject to immediate disciplinary action.”
The most severe sanction handed down is the revocation of Yalies4Palestine’s status as a registered student organization, which proscribes their holding events on campus indefinitely. Additionally, the group will no longer enjoy access to funds that subsidize club activities and is deprived entirely of the privilege of assembling on university property. A string of transgressions precipitated the action, Yale said in Wednesday’s statement, noting that the group had been forewarned on Monday that it had exhausted the university’s tolerance for its misconduct.
“Concerns have been raised about disturbing antisemitic conduct at the gathering,” the statement continued. “The university is investigating those concerns, as harassment and discrimination are antithetical to learning and scholarship. Yale condemns antisemitism and will hold those who violate our policies accountable through our disciplinary processes.”
Yale University has ample cause to claim credit for quelling the would-be encampment and punishing those who were involved in it. The Trump administration has been impounding federal funds previously appropriated to universities that allow pro-Hamas demonstrations and promote excessive “wokeness.”
In March, it cancelled $400 million in federal contracts and grants for Columbia University, a measure that secured the school’s acceding to a slew of demands the administration put forth as preconditions for restoring the money. Princeton University saw $210 million of its federal grants and funding suspended too, prompting its president, Christopher Eisgruber to say the institution is “committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.” Brown University’s federal funding is also reportedly at risk due to its alleged failing to mount a satisfactory response to the campus antisemitism crisis, as well as its alignment with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement.
Most recently, the Trump administration cancelled $2.26 billion in federal funding for Harvard University following the institution’s refusal to agree to a wishlist of reforms that Republican lawmakers have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Contained in a letter shared by interim Harvard president Alan Garber, the policies called for included “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [DEI initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implored Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”
Harvard is now suing the administration in federal court to halt its sequestering of grants and contracts paid for by the American taxpayer. However, resolving the complaint could take months, and any money confiscated from Yale before a ruling in that case is rendered could cause catastrophic levels of harm that lead to hiring freezes, job cuts, and unsustainable borrowing, a measure to which several universities, including Harvard, have resorted to cover budget shortfalls.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Yale University Students Abort Anti-Israel Encampment Attempts After Warning From Officials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Saudi, French, US Officials Push Hezbollah Disarmament Plan
Lebanese army members stand on a military vehicle during a Lebanese army media tour, to review the army’s operations in the southern Litani sector, in Alma Al-Shaab, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, Nov. 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
French, Saudi Arabian, and American officials held talks with the head of the Lebanese army on Thursday in Paris aimed at finalizing a roadmap to enable a mechanism for the disarmament of the Hezbollah terrorist group, diplomats said.
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire in 2024, ending more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that severely weakened the Iran-backed terrorists.
Since then, the sides have traded accusations over violations with Israel questioning the Lebanese army’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah. Israeli warplanes have increasingly targeted Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and even in the capital.
Speaking after the meeting, France’s foreign ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux said the talks had agreed to document seriously with evidence the Lebanese army’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah as well as strengthening the existing ceasefire mechanism.
CEASEFIRE AT RISK
With growing fear the ceasefire could unravel, the Paris meeting aimed to create more robust conditions to identify, support, and verify the disarmament process and dissuade Israel from escalation, four European and Lebanese diplomats and officials told Reuters.
With legislative elections due in Lebanon in 2026, there are fears political paralysis and party politics will further fuel instability and make President Joseph Aoun less likely to press disarmament, the diplomats and officials said.
“The situation is extremely precarious, full of contradictions and it won’t take much to light the powder keg,” said one senior official speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Aoun doesn’t want to make the disarming process too public because he fears it will antagonize and provoke tensions with the Shi’ite community in the south of the country.”
With the Lebanese army lacking capacity to disarm Hezbollah, the idea would be to reinforce the existing ceasefire mechanism with French, US, and possibly other military experts along with UN peacekeeping forces, the diplomats and officials said.
The parties agreed to hold a conference in February to reinforce the Lebanese army, Confavreux said.
ISRAELI STRIKES
As officials convened for the talks, multiple Israeli strikes hit towns in southern Lebanon and areas of the Bekaa Valley on Thursday, Lebanon’s state news agency NNA reported.
The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets across several areas, including a military compound used for training, weapons storage, and artillery launches, saying the activity violated understandings between Israel and Lebanon and posed a threat to Israel. It also said it struck a Hezbollah militant in the area of Taybeh in southern Lebanon.
Commenting on the attacks, parliament speaker and Hezbollah-allied Amal Movement leader Nabih Berri said the strikes were an “Israeli message” to the Paris conference, NNA added.
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Israel, Germany Sign $3.1 Billion Contract Expansion for Arrow Air Defense System
Flags flutter in front of a radom of the “Arrow Weapon System for Germany” pictured in Annaburg, Germany, Dec. 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Axel Schmidt
Israel and Germany signed a contract worth around $3.1 billion to expand the Arrow-3 air and missile defense system manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries, Israel‘s defense ministry said on Thursday.
Germany first purchased the Arrow system in 2023, as it sees Russia’s intermediate-range missiles as the primary threat to its population and critical infrastructure.
“Combined, the two agreements total approximately $6.7 billion, representing the largest defense export deal in Israel’s history,” the ministry said.
Germany in December became the first European nation to deploy the Arrow air defense system, built to intercept intermediate-range ballistic missiles such as Russia’s Oreshnik, as it seeks to counter what it views as a growing threat from Moscow.
The system, developed by IAI in cooperation with the US Missile Defense Agency, is used as the upper layer of Israel‘s missile defenses, together with the Iron Dome, which takes out short-range threats.
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Trump Administration Imposes Sanctions on Two More ICC Judges for ‘Politicized Actions Targeting Israel’
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a US-Paraguay Status of Forces agreement signing ceremony at the State Department in Washington, DC, US, Dec. 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt
US President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on two more judges from the International Criminal Court over their involvement in the court’s case against Israel, ratcheting up Washington’s pressure campaign against the war tribunal.
In November 2024, ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict.
Israel has adamantly denied war crimes in Gaza, where it has waged a military campaign to eliminate Hamas following the terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
The Trump administration has already imposed sanctions on nine ICC judges and prosecutors and threatened to designate the court in its entirety – a move that would be detrimental to its operations – if the ICC did not drop its charges against the Israeli leaders.
Washington’s other demands on the court are that it formally end an earlier probe of US troops over their actions in Afghanistan and change its founding statute to ensure that it would not pursue a prosecution of Trump and his top officials, a Trump administration official told Reuters last week.
“The ICC has continued to engage in politicized actions targeting Israel, which set a dangerous precedent for all nations. We will not tolerate ICC abuses of power that violate the sovereignty of the United States and Israel and wrongly subject US and Israeli persons to the ICC’s jurisdiction,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
Rubio said the United States was designating ICC judge Gocha Lordkipanidze from Georgia and Erdenebalsuren Damdin from Mongolia and said they had “directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel‘s consent.”
Earlier this year the US administration sanctioned six other judges and the court’s prosecutor Karim Khan and his two deputies.
The measures mean the judges cannot travel to the United States or hold any assets there, but they also make it virtually impossible for them to hold credit cards, making everyday financial transactions and online purchases difficult.
‘FLAGRANT ATTACK’
Rubio referred to the magistrates’ involvement in voting to reject one of several Israeli legal challenges against the ICC probe into its conduct of the Gaza war earlier this week.
The judges named were part of a panel that refused to overturn a lower court decision that the prosecution’s investigation into alleged crimes under its jurisdiction could include events following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, which included the murder of 1,200 people and kidnapping of 251 hostages during the Palestinian terrorists’ rampage across southern Israel.
The ICC said it deplored the new round of sanctions, which is the fourth round of measures this year.
“These sanctions are a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution,” it said in a statement, adding that the measures put the international legal order at risk.
The ICC was founded in 2002 under a treaty giving it jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes that were either committed by a citizen of a member state or had taken place on a member state’s territory.
The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
Th Netherlands, which hosts the ICC in The Hague, also condemned the sanctions and said international courts should be able to work without interference.
“International courts and tribunals must be able to carry out their mandates unhindered,” Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel said on social media platform X.
The ICC’s decision to seek the arrest of Netanyahu has received widespread backlash.
Khan initially made his surprise demand for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on the same day in May that he suddenly canceled a long-planned visit to both Gaza and Israel to collect evidence of alleged war crimes. The last-second cancellation reportedly infuriated US and British leaders, as the trip would have offered Israeli leaders a first opportunity to present their position and outline any action they were taking to respond to the allegations.
However, the ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which has provided significant humanitarian aid into the enclave during the war.
Israel also says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, despite Hamas’s widely acknowledged military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
US and Israeli officials have issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, which launched the war in Gaza with its Oct. 7 atrocities.