Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from Columbia

Minnesota Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar has arrived on the campus at Columbia University in New York.

Omar's daughter, Isra Hirsi, 21, was among a group of pro-Palestinian protesters who were cleared from the university by police last week.

Hirsi says she was suspended from Columbia's sister college, Barnard, for "standing in solidarity with Palestinians".

It's been relatively quiet so far on Thursday on Columbia's South Lawn.

Protesters are sitting out in front of their tents on the encampment, some listening to stories of those killed in the Israel-Gaza conflict read to them by their fellow students.

Another group of students has been circling in the square chanting "disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest" and "our student rights are under attack, what do we do, stand up fight back".

On a wall overlooking the encampment is a line of photos, under wilting roses, of Israelis held captive by Hamas.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

We’re getting further reports of camps being set up - and police responses - from across the country.

At Emory University in Atlanta, activists pitched tents on campus this morning. Police moved in and there are claims that they used pepper spray and rubber bullets as they detained protesters.

The activists said they were supporting Palestinians, but also objecting to a police training centre in Atlanta. Plans for the centre have been controversial locally and the project has been dubbed “Cop City” by opponents.

In a statement Emory president Gregory L Fenves said the protesters “are largely not affiliated with Emory and were disrupting the university as our students finish classes and prepare for finals. This is completely unacceptable.”

Reporters at the scene say several Emory students and faculty are among those detained by police. It's unclear exactly how many people have been arrested. The BBC has contacted Emory for comment.

Boston's Brandeis University has extended its transfer deadline in the wake of the campus protests.

In an open letter, the university president Ronald D Liebowitz wrote: “Jewish students are being targeted and attacked physically and verbally, preventing them from pursuing their studies and activities outside of class, just because they are Jewish or support Israel.”

He said his college would be "free of harassment and Jew-hatred".

One-third of students at the university are Jewish, and it has a deep history with the community.

The university said that for those wishing to apply to Brandeis, applications to transfer will be open until 31 May, and it is willing to accept higher numbers than usual.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

In the nation's capital, hundreds of students and faculty have just marched all the way from Georgetown to the George Washington University (GW) campus.

They walked past GW police into the designated encampment area. Professors in their academic robes joined the march. No arrests have been made so far.

On Thursday, Georgetown University officials said dozens of pro-Palestinian protestors had set up an encampment with at least 20 tents.

There are also students camped outside the president's office at American University in Washington DC.

An estimated two dozen colleges in the US are now protesting.

Image source, Getty Images

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denounced the college protests across the US.

"What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific," he said on Wednesday, describing the pro-Palestinian protesters as "antisemitic mobs" taking over "leading universities".

"They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty," Netanyahu said.

"It has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally. But that’s not what happened. The response of several university presidents was shameful."

Though the protests have largely been peaceful, there are reports of increasing antisemitism on campuses, which has led the White House and multiple lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to condemn the hatred.

Some Jewish students at the University of Columbia told the BBC they didn’t feel safe, but others have said they support the demonstrations.

Image source, Getty Images

Large crowds of pro-Palestinian protesters, many of them students, have been gathering at an increasing number of universities in the US.

Hundreds have been arrested in the last two weeks.

But what do they want?

Many of the activists are calling for universities to stop investing school funds into companies involved in weapons manufacturing and other industries supporting Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.

"Our university is complicit in this violence, and this is why we protest," Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from New York

For some observers, the protests at Columbia and other US college campuses echo the 1960s, when demonstrations against the Vietnam War rocked the country.

Among those who see parallels is Marianne Hirsch, a literature professor who also specialises in Holocaust studies.

Speaking to reporters this week, Hirsch - who participated in the 1960s protest movement - said that in her opinion, the war in Vietnam and the current war in Gaza made it "impossible to continue business as usual".

“People in this world are feeling that what is happening in Gaza is unbearable and that they have to act,” she said.

Another veteran of the 1960s protest movement and author of a book on the movement and mass arrests that took place in Columbia at the time, Oren Root, told the BBC that while he saw significant parallels, he believed opposition to the protests today was much more intense.

“The politicisation is much more extreme,” said Root, a 1969 Columbia graduate. “There were certainly conservative politicians in 1968 who were opposed and severely criticised the protest movements, but the world is different now.”

“The internet and social media are a big factor,” he said, adding that it helped amplify accusations that the protests were antisemitic.

“It ramps up emotional, political and personal aspects of the opposition in ways that are really unfortunate.”

Here's a snapshot of where the main demonstrations are taking place:

• Emerson College, Boston - 108 people were arrested on Thursday, with Boston police saying protesters will be arraigned. Four officers were injured. The college had earlier warned that tents set up by protesters were in violation of city ordinances
• University of Southern California's Alumni Park - on Wednesday police confronted the crowd and ordered the dismantling of the encampment. Several people were arrested on Wednesday
• University of Texas, Austin - more than 30 people were arrested by law enforcement on Wednesday. Police used bikes and riot gear to push students back
• Columbia University, New York - the protests began at Columbia University, where more than 100 arrests were made last week. On Wednesday, the board of trustees released a statement saying they strongly supported President Nemat Shafik, who has faced calls for her resignation
• Harvard University, Boston - The encampment in Harvard Yard mounted by pro-Palestinian student organisers entered its second day on Thursday, with organisers saying they were intent on remaining at the site until the university met their demands
• The California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt campus will remain closed over the weekend as protesters continue to occupy two buildings. Work and classes will remain remote. There are "unidentified non-students" occupying buildings
• In Washington, encampments have been set up at Georgetown University and George Washington University (GW) and American University. A walkout is planned this afternoon at Georgetown
• Protests have also been taking place at Yale, MIT, Brown, Stanford and Johns Hopkins Universities

Not all students are taking part in the demonstrations.

One of those is Columbia freshman Jacob. He saw the group from afar on Tuesday, and says since the police were called, "everything has blown up".

"That was pouring gasoline on the fire," he says of the decision to call in law enforcement.

"I wish our administration had maybe worked with them a little more to hear their demands," he adds.

Jacob says he has Jewish friends who feel uncomfortable on campus and he empathises with them.

A week ago Columbia University’s president called in police to clear pro-Palestinian protesters from the campus in New York City. Since then increasingly tense demonstrations have spread to universities across the country.

"The tides have shifted," says master's student Basil, a protester at Columbia University.

The Columbia University Apartheid Divest organiser says students are now willing to put their careers and even bodies at stake "for the bombs to stop dropping immediately and for our institutions to stop making money off of bombs".

"We're mobilised to continue going."

Darializa tells the BBC she is proud of the students. She has graduated, but returned for the demonstration, whose participants, she says, are "determined to remain" until their demands are met.

"They are stubborn," she adds.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from New York

Image source, Reuters

Many of the protesters have rejected accusations of antisemitism, contending that opposition to the Israeli government’s handling of the war in Gaza does not mean they are targeting Jews.

There is a difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, they argue. Zionism refers to the movement to create a Jewish state in the Middle East, roughly corresponding to the historical land of Israel.

Many of the demo organisers and some college authorities have acknowledged incidents of antisemitism at the rallies, but have blamed them on outside agitators, unaffiliated with the campus.

New York student Caroline Daisy said: "This is not an antisemitic movement but outside protesters are a different story sometimes."

Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine said they "firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry" and criticised "inflammatory individuals who do not represent us".

Soph Askanase, a 21-year-old student at Columbia's sister college Barnard, said "being uncomfortable is different than being unsafe".

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from New York

Yesterday, I spent much of the afternoon speaking to students at Columbia University, where the protests against the Gaza war have been marred by allegations of harassment and antisemitic incidents.

Several Jewish students told me they were concerned about a threatening campus environment.

Guy Sela, an Israeli Columbia student - and a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces - told the BBC he believed "every Israeli Jewish student" at the university had faced "at least one antisemitic act", whether verbal or physical, since the protest began.

"I've been threatened here, called names like murderer, butcher and rapist, just because I was born in Israel," he said.

Jonathan Swill, a 27-year old master's student from New Jersey, told the BBC he was moving to Israel after graduation, having turned down a place in a doctoral programme at Columbia.

"I just can't stay here anymore," he said.

"This place is uncomfortable for me. Every time I wake up, I dread having to come to campus. I don't know when I'm going to have things thrown at me."

Another Jewish student - who asked to remain anonymous, citing safety reasons - said his experiences with antisemitism on campus recently have been "emotionally exhausting" and have led to constant feelings of fear, particularly when leaving religious ceremonies.

"I feel scared wearing my yarmulke," he said. "In the past week, there's definitely been a change. It's 100% as bad as everyone is saying."

Image source, Getty Images

At the University of Texas in Austin, police on horseback descended on a large crowd of pro-Palestinian protestors gathered on the school’s campus.

Images from the encounter between police and protestors show multiple people handcuffed, face down, some with police kneeling on them.

A video went viral showing a local news cameraman being knocked to the ground by police.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the protesters "belong in jail".

The protest - launched on Wednesday morning by a university-affiliated student group - was quickly dispelled by the evening.

The university’s president, Jay Hartzell, said demonstrators tried to “occupy” the campus, and broke university policies while ignoring multiple requests to leave.

Image source, Getty Images

Across the country at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, 93 people were taken into custody for trespassing charges on Wednesday. Defiant pro-Palestinian protesters were dressed in kaffiyehs, and were equipped with megaphones and drums.

They were met by helmeted officers in riot gear who moved to disperse the crowd, giving them 10-minute warnings to move. Helicopters hovered overhead.

“Your time is up. Leave the area or you will be arrested for trespassing,” police said.

The protest was reported to have been largely peaceful at first, but then turned tense. As police tried to detain one woman, protesters threw water bottles at them and chanted: "Let her go!"

The arrests at USC were made as students gathered in Alumni Park - where the university's main-stage graduation ceremony is scheduled to take place next month.

Professors were given the option to teach virtually on Thursday.

Image source, Getty Images

Days-long protests at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts culminated in more than 100 protesters being arrested overnight, and injuries to four police officers.

Police told an affiliate for CBS News, the BBC’s media partner, that three of the officers' injuries were minor, and one was “more serious”. They said none of the arrested individuals were hurt.

Student descriptions of the scene painted a violent picture. “There were people getting thrown down to the ground, arms put behind their back, dragged away, pushed away… without much regard for the safety of those they were removing," one student told CBS.

Classes at the university were cancelled for the day on Thursday.

Students made an encampment on Sunday night in an alley by the university. They remained until their removal on early Thursday morning, despite warnings from police.

Thanks for joining our live coverage as protests prompted by the war in Gaza spread across university campuses across the US.

More than 100 people were arrested at Columbia University last week, many of them students, for refusing to leave their “solidarity encampments”, following multiple warnings from the university.

Since then, a wave of demonstrations at several other locations have popped up – from California to New York – leading to hundreds more arrests. Some 108 people were taken into custody in Boston overnight.

The protesters are saying their free speech rights are being aggressively silenced.

There have also been reports of antisemitic incidents at some of the protests - which was previously condemned by the White House.