Where pro-Palestinian university protests are happening around the world

London – Protests in solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip swept college campuses across the United States in recent weeks, but they have also spread rapidly around the world.

Demonstrations have erupted on the campuses of major universities across the Arab and Western world as the war rages on. Below is a look at where some of the larger protests took shape.

Lebanon

In Lebanon, hundreds of students gathered this week on university campuses in the country’s capital, Beirut. Video posted online by the American University of Beirut showed protesters waving Palestinian flags and posters emblazoned with messages demanding that the university sever all commercial ties with Israel.

“This isn’t just about the Palestinians, of course — it is, but it’s also about what’s happening to us in our own country,” Karine Ballout, a 23-year-old Lebanese student at the university, told CBS News on Thursday. “We call for an immediate end to the US-supported Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, and also an immediate end to US-supported Israeli aggression in Lebanon.”

Israel has exchanged fire with Lebanon-based Hezbollah group, an ally of Hamas that is also supported by Iran, since the beginning of the war, on October 7th. The war was triggered by Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel, which killed around 1,200 people and saw the militants capture around 240 other people hostage. There are still 100 people, including five US citizens, believed to be alive and in captivity in Gaza.

“Of course we were inspired by the protests in the US, and Columbia University in particular,” Rayyan Kilani, 21, a student at American University, told Reuters news agency.

Jordan

Thousands of protesters also demonstrated in Jordan, which, like Lebanon, borders Israel, in solidarity with Palestinians since the start of the war, including university students.

However, Jordanian authorities have cracked down on university activists during the past seven months of war, and activists canceled a protest planned for Tuesday at the University of Jordan in Amman, Reuters reported.

DAWN, an organization focused on human rights in the Middle East, said at least nine students have been arrested and five expelled or suspended for participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Jordan since October 7.

“Although King Abdullah loudly protests the war in Gaza to the international community, he does not allow Jordanians the same right to express their own opinions,” said Jamal Al Tahat, senior consultant at DAWN, in a March press release.

UK

Mass demonstrations have taken place on university campuses across the United Kingdom since the start of the war, including at the University of Oxford, the University of Newcastle, the University of Warwick and University College London, among others.

At University College London, protesters called on the school to sever its connection with Tel Aviv University and cut all economic ties with weapons manufacturers who they say support Israel’s war effort.

“Our demands are basically to demand that UCL end its complicity in what we see as a genocide in Gaza… demand an academic boycott because Tel Aviv, like many other Israeli universities, is embedded in the Israeli military establishment,” said Bushra, a The 24-year-old UCL master’s student, who only gave her first name, told CBS News on Thursday. “UCL has collaborations with BAE Systems, with Lockheed Martin – there has been no statement about the ethical nature of these partnerships.”

Bushra said she stood in solidarity with US protesters as they face police repression on some campuses, but she emphasized that the focus should be on Gaza.

“Columbia activists said the same thing,” she told CBS News. “Whatever oppression they face does not represent the smallest fraction of the suffering the people of Palestine face.”

France

At the renowned French university Sciences Po Paris, protesters clashed with riot police last week, with several dozen police officers entering the school to expel around 60 protesters who had set up a camp, according to Le Monde newspaper.

On Wednesday, the Sciences Po Palestine Committee, which organized the protests, posted a map showing where protests against the war in Gaza were scheduled at universities across France.

“While students at American universities are repressed, the movement spreads throughout France,” the group said in its Instagram post.

On Friday, dozens of French police officers in riot gear were seen entering the Sciences Po campus and removing several students occupying one of its buildings.

Australia

University protests have also erupted in the Australian cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and the capital Canberra, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp., mirroring tent encampments at U.S. universities. Australian students have also called on their universities to divest from Israel and disclose and cut ties with arms manufacturers who do business with Israel, the Australian national broadcaster said.

A son some US campusesthere have been reports of antisemitism amid protests at universities across Australia.

On Wednesday, the Australian Union of Jewish Students said that since the start of the war, “Jewish students have been targeted at university events and required to publicly declare their political positions during classes”, adding its concern that ” We are witnessing a new escalation in the vilification of Jewish students.”

On Friday, protesters at the more than week-long pro-Palestine camp at the University of Sydney faced off against rival pro-Israel demonstrators, shouting slogans and waving flags but without any physical confrontations.

Canada

Closer to the chaos unfolding in the US, student protesters have set up a camp in a common park on the University of Toronto campus, Canadian national broadcaster CBC reported on Thursday.

Activists there have issued similar demands that their university divest of assets that “sustain Israeli apartheid, occupation and illegal settlement of Palestine,” according to CBC News.