Palestinian embassy seeks temporary status for those who entered Egypt
The Palestinian embassy in Egypt is seeking temporary residency permits for tens of thousands of people who have arrived from Gaza during the war, which it says would ease conditions for them until the conflict is over.
Diab al-Louh, the Palestinian ambassador in Cairo, said as many as 100,000 Palestinians had crossed into Egypt, where they lack the papers to enrol their children in schools, open businesses or bank accounts, travel, or access health insurance – though some have found ways to make a living.
Al-Louh stressed that residency permits would only be for legal and humanitarian purposes, adding that those who arrived since the war began on October 7 had no plans to settle in Egypt.
“We are talking about a category [of people] in an exceptional situation. We asked the state to give them temporary residencies that can be renewed until the crisis in Gaza is over,” al-Louh told the Reuters news agency in an interview.
Pulitzer Prize board lauds students journalists covering campuses
As the Pulitzer Prize board gathers to announce this year’s winners on May 6, it has released a statement to recognise the efforts of student journalists covering pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the face of what it called “great personal and academic risk”.
“We would also like to acknowledge the extraordinary real-time reporting of student journalists at Columbia University, where the Pulitzer Prizes are housed, as the New York Police Department was called onto campus on Tuesday night,” it said.
“In the spirit of press freedom, these students worked to document a major national news event under difficult and dangerous circumstances and at risk of arrest.”
Police clear UCLA camp: Here’s a recap
- After several hours of standoff, police have moved in on the UCLA campus to clear a pro-Palestine encampment.
- Officers in riot gear have used flashbangs, removed barricades and arrested a number of protesters.
- Protesters have chanted slogans such as “This is a peaceful protest” and “Shame on you” as police advanced.
- A few dozen protesters remain currently at the campus, out of an initial 400, a witness has told Al Jazeera.
At least 2,000 arrested at US campus pro-Palestine protests: Report
A tally from the Associated Press found that 2,000 people have been arrested since mid-April, when students at Columbia University in New York occupied their campus and kicked off a wave of student-led pro-Palestine protests across the US.
Earlier today, at least 200 were arrested at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the latest incident of mass arrest at a campus protest.
Former state dept official who resigned over Gaza cancels talk at Dartmouth
Josh Paul, the highest ranking Biden administration official to resign over its approach to the war in Gaza, has canceled a talk at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire after witnessing the police response to a protest on the campus.
“I arrived at my hotel to find an encampment in the green across the road, a peaceful group of students, faced off by a line of riot police,” he wrote on LinkedIn.
“As I have watched tonight, I have seen a police snatch squad break into the encampment and grab students and faculty one-by-one, and haul them off, as the riot police close the line behind them,” he said, adding he had been “reliably informed that ‘this is being done at the behest of the Dartmouth College administration.'”
He said he “gravely misjudged Dartmouth’s commitment to free and constructive dialogue”, adding he would cancel a planned panel discussion, but would continue with preplanned classroom discussions and private conversations.
‘Greater than an encampment’: Why Gaza student protests strike a chord
Reporting from Montreal, Canada
Like those in the US, the encampment at Canada’s McGill University has struck a chord – both with the students and wider community members who support the protesters, and with the pro-Israel politicians and groups that have vehemently denounced them.
Some supporters say the encampments have stirred such strong reactions because they are highlighting stark inconsistencies: governments that say they promote human rights but provide unwavering support to Israel; universities that say they promote freedom of expression but send police to break up peaceful protests; right-wing politicians that denounce liberal “safe space” policies, but are now arguing that pro-Israel students feel unsafe.
The student protests have “exposed a lot of the contradictions in political discourse in the US and by extension, in Canada, too”, said Barry Eidlin, an associate professor of sociology at McGill.
“It hits so close to home for people and [there’s] this sort of hypocrisy between what our governments say they stand for in terms of democracy, human rights, freedom – and the kind of actions that they are supporting” in Gaza, he told Al Jazeera.
Dozens of tents have been set up as part of a student protest encampment for Gaza at McGill University, in Montreal, Canada
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