Pro-Palestinian encampment dismantled at MIT

Police began dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment set up on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus early Friday morning, following a similar series of events at colleges nationwide.

Organizers said only about 10 people were inside the encampment, but a group of protesters were chanting outside it, The Associated Press reported.

The university said 10 individuals, a mix of undergraduate and graduate students, were arrested. They were peacefully escorted from the encampment.

According to the student paper, The Tech, a 15-minute notice was given to demonstrators to vacate the premises at 4:03 a.m., and the first arrest was made by 4:29 a.m.

Officers, some dressed in riot gear, began to disassemble the encampment. By 7 a.m., only a “small contingent of police officers remain on standby” on campus.

The operation comes several days after police first attempted to clear the MIT encampment, but protesters stormed past barriers and set up the area again.

Multiple MIT students had been arrested earlier and several were suspended, meaning they can no longer participate in school organizations or commencement at the end of the month.

“This is only going to make us stronger. They can’t arrest the movement,” said Quinn Perian, an undergraduate MIT student and organizers for MIT Jews for Ceasefire. “We are going to continue and won’t back down until MIT agrees to cut ties with the Israeli military.”

MIT President Sally Kornbluth said Friday that she directed police to dismantle the encampment. She wrote a letter explaining how MIT arrived at this “unprecedented situation.”

Kornbluth said her job is to make sure campus is a safe space for everyone, and “the presence of the encampment increasingly made it impossible to meet all these obligations.”

The development mirrors what’s happening at colleges across the country. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have set up encampments on more than 400 campuses, calling on their universities to divest from Israeli companies or companies that supply weapons to Israel.

More than 2,000 arrests have been made so far as police and demonstrators clash on some campuses.