US police arrest Jadaliyya co-editor Sinan Antoon during NYU protests over Gaza

US police arrested the co-editor of Jadaliyya, an online magazine produced by the Arab Studies Institute, during pro-Palestine demonstrations at New York University (NYU).

Jadaliyya announced that Sinan Antoon, along with other faculty members and students, were arrested as they attempted to protect students from the police.

Palestinian-American human rights attorney Noura Erakat confirmed the arrests in a statement posted on X.

"NYPD is arresting faculty on their campuses for protecting their students. The academy is imbricated with the state and the military industry intent on war in blatant abrogation of its mission and any semblance of independence. What a gross betrayal," she wrote.

BREAKING: NYPD arrested Jadaliyya Co-Editor and NYU Associate Professor Sinan Antoon along with other faculty and students as he/they was/were trying to protect NYU students from the Police. We will not ever be silenced.

— Jadaliyya (@jadaliyya) April 23, 2024

Police officers moved in on NYU protesters at around 8:30 p.m., after giving a deadline for protests to clear an area of the campus.

According to reports, police arrested at least two dozen people who had gathered in the streets at the university, in the city’s Greenwich Village area.

Officers moved towards an encampment at Gould Plaza near the university late in the evening with video footage showing them dismantling tents and tossing them aside.

The clampdown on the protesters, who were calling for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, came shortly after New York’s Colombia University announced it would be delivering online classes amid the growing protests and encampments in its New York campus.

Last week, over 100 people were arrested at Columbia University, the first such action taken by police in three decades.

Students there have called for divestment of the university's funds from companies linked to Israel, and a ceasefire in Gaza.

Since the arrests, a new encampment has emerged with hundreds of faculty members holding a mass walkout to protest over Columbia University’s president’s handling of the situation.

On Monday evening, authorities also arrested at least 47 protesters at the Yale University campus in New Haven.

The university said it had repeatedly asked students to leave and warned them they could face law enforcement and disciplinary action if they didn’t.

Columbia and Yale have said any students participating in the action would be suspended.

The encampments have triggered a wider protest movement by students across the US, including at Brown University, Berkeley, Princeton and Northwestern, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Emerson College in Boston.

Israel has waged an indiscriminate war on Gaza for over six months with the US providing military aid and diplomatic support.

Hospitals, residential buildings, schools, and other infrastructure have been targeted by missiles and bombs, plunging the enclave into a deep humanitarian crisis.

At least 34,100 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, and an additional 77,000 wounded in the same time frame.