MIT Police Arrest 8 People Protesting Israel-Hamas War for Blocking a Parking Garage – LAWYER

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) police arrested eight people on Thursday who were protesting the Israel-Hamas war and calling on university officials to terminate all related research contracts Israel’s Defense Ministry.

To demand an immediate response from the college, protesters blocked the entrance to the campus parking garage, for which the school issued a warning, claiming it significantly impacted safety and life on campus. The school then cleared the protesters from the parking garage and Vassar Street by calling campus police and Cambridge police, and later reopened at 5 p.m

During the incident, eight protesters were arrested, the rest were dispersed and continued to chant “Free Palestine.” The leader of this protest movement, Hannah Didehbani is an MIT student who received a suspension and eviction notice from the school. She said that the purpose of blocking the campus garage was to draw more attention to MIT’s complicity with the Israeli military, and that suspensions cannot stop protest movements.

Tensions have risen significantly across the country due to campus protests like the one at MIT and the police response to them. Local or campus police have arrested more than 2,800 people protesting the Israel-Hamas war, including 118 demonstrators at nearby Emerson College, 52 students at Yale University, 9 students at the University of Minnesota and more than 200 college students from Columbia University.