At least nine people were arrested as police broke up the pro-Palestinian camp at MIT

May 10 (UPI) – Authorities arrested at least nine Massachusetts Institute of Technology students as they dismantled a pro-Palestinian camp on the Cambridge campus.

MIT President Sally Kornbluth warned student protesters who had joined hundreds of others to demand the termination of MIT’s research contracts with the Israeli Defense Ministry to leave Kresge Lawn, where the camp was set up, by Monday afternoon.

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MIT had already suspended dozens of students and referred their cases to the disciplinary committee for refusing to vacate the campsite despite being initially ordered to do so.

Protesters returned to the camp and held an “emergency” rally on Thursday in support of those facing punishment. This was organized by the MIT Graduate Student Union, to which some of the students arrested on Thursday belong.

“We must now strike back to defend our colleagues,” the message said.

“We’re not going to stop acting,” MIT student Quinn Perian told WCVB-TV. “We will not stop letting the institution know that there is no normal life – there is no normal life in Gaza. We will continue to show everyone that this complicity in genocide is unacceptable.”

The MIT arrests are part of aggressive moves by university administrators to close camps set up by pro-Palestinian protesters on campuses across the country. Encampment numbers increased in the spring, and many protesters called on universities to withdraw from Israeli institutions.