Student protests against Israel have refused to die down and so far more than 550 people have been arrested.

New York:
A popular rally at America's top universities with students calls for companies to stop investing in weapons and Israel fueling the Gaza war. The protesters say they are ready for arrests, but will not stop until their demands are met.

1. According to a Reuters tally, nearly 550 arrests have been made at major US universities in the past week. Massive demonstrations against Israel are being held at Harvard, Columbia, Yale and UC Berkeley and many other American universities.

2. University officials have said the demonstrations are often unsanctioned and call in the police to quell them.

3. Over the past two days, law enforcement has fired Tasers and tear gas at student protesters at Emory University in Atlanta, activists say, while officers in riot gear and on horseback have dispersed demonstrations at the University of Texas. In Austin.

4. A video of an Emory University professor being tackled to the ground and handcuffed by police is going viral on social media. In the video, Professor Caroline Follin can be seen trying to intervene as police officers wrestle a student protester.

5. Student protesters say they are showing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the death toll has risen to 34,305, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

6. They want universities to reduce their investments in anything tied to Israel and weapons that fuel the war in Gaza. That means funds run by BlackRock, Google and Amazon's cloud service, Lockheed Martin and Airbnb.

7. It's a long-standing demand — for decades university administrators and lawmakers have rejected the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel, which calls into question the legitimacy of the Jewish state and isolates one country's policies.

8. In Columbia, the heartland of the movement, university officials are deadlocked with students over the removal of a tent camp set up two weeks ago to protest the Israeli offensive.

9. Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden condemned “blatant anti-Semitism” that has “no place on college campuses”. But the White House has also said the president supports free speech at American universities.

10. Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union condemned the arrests of protesters and urged authorities to respect their free speech rights.

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