More than two dozen Palestinian journalists have called for a boycott of the upcoming White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which annually brings reporters, politicians and a glitzy array of celebrities together. With President Joe Biden heading a long list of VIP guests, Palestinian journalists penned an open letter urging their American colleagues not to attend the dinner.

“You have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and uphold journalistic integrity,” said the letter. “It is unacceptable to stay silent out of fear or professional concern while journalists in Gaza continue to be detained, tortured, and killed for doing our jobs.”

According to the New York-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), at least 97 journalists – including 92 Palestinians – have been killed since October 7. At least 16 others have been wounded.

In addition to the boycott call, an antiwar coalition is planning a demonstration not far from the Washington Hilton hotel where the dinner will take place. The antiwar group Code Pink, part of the coalition, said it planned to “shut down” the dinner to protest “the complicity of the Biden administration in the targeting and killing of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli military”.

It’s astonishing. We’ve never seen a White House correspondent’s dinner like this.



At the Washington Hilton, the president is here to speak while being warmly applauded by the national US press core. But these VIPs are all dressed up in the evening finery, and they have to run the gauntlet of hundreds of protesters out here who are shouting, “Shame on you”.



“Shame on you” for breaking bread when there are 140 journalists dead as a result of, as far as they say, Biden’s complicity in their murder.

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary was one of the signatories of the letter calling on US White House journalists to boycott the correspondent’s dinner. She spoke to us from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. Here is what she said:

I don’t have the words to describe what I have been going through since October 7.

This is not something that has been ending. It has been continuous every single day for more than 200 days. We have been killed, displaced and homeless, and we’re not only reporting on this, but we’re also living it with every single detail.

We’re living this war in all aspects of life. We have not seen our families as journalists. We have not been able to eat well. We have been dehydrated.

We have been reporting in one of the harshest conditions any reporter can go through despite losing a lot of colleagues, and it hurts our souls and our hearts every single day.

We have been constantly targeted by the Israeli air strikes and shelling.

All of these daily things we have been living as journalists are overwhelming [and] exhausting, but we still continue because there have been at least 100 Palestinian journalists whom I personally know that have been killed since October 7.

If they were here today with us, they would be reporting, and they would be raising the voice of the voiceless Palestinians.

According to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency, nine were injured in an Israeli raid on the town of Srebbine in the south of the country.

The Israeli raid targeted a house in the southern Lebanese town of Srebbine. NNA said one person was injured critically and that among the wounded were two Syrian citizens.

We reported earlier on an exchange of fire between Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the Israeli military in the north of Israel. The Israeli military now says that its fighter jets struck Hezbollah infrastructure in the areas of Markaba and Srebbine in southern Lebanon.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent, Zeina Khodr, reports that the strike in Srebbine destroyed a house and that 14 civilians were injured, two of them seriously.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent reports that 30 rockets were fired from Lebanon towards Israel. The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation reported that rockets were fired from Lebanon towards the Meron area, which is located in northern Israel. Israeli media and platforms broadcast scenes showing explosions over the area.

As we have reported, there were several exchanges of fire across the Lebanon-Israel border on Saturday. An Israeli strike in Srebbine, southern Lebanon, destroyed a house and injured 14 civilians, two of them seriously.

It’s noisy at the moment. Several organisers have been speaking at a news conference, making clear their intent not to vacate this area. At the moment, there are a little more than 100 students encamped in what is called University Square.

Unlike what is happening at other universities like Princeton, this is a public university, so effectively, this is all public space. University administrators and the police are well aware of this. Administrators did ask the police to come in 24 hours ago and remove tents. However, Washington, DC police declined to do so. They insisted that the demonstrations were peaceful and that they would not interfere as long as they remained so.

Now, some of the students have told us that the university is using retaliatory methods. It has suspended a number of the students who have been demonstrating. The university identifies them when they leave the square behind me and go into one of the adjoining buildings to use a bathroom, for example, and as they would need to log in to the system. They have then been identified by that login.

However, the students insist they will remain here. The police maintain that their job is to stand here and observe and take no action while these demonstrations remain peaceful.

This is day three at Princeton University, and these students are walking a fine line. The university has said that they are not allowed to sleep here, so they have been coming in shifts to continually occupy this space for these past three days. On Thursday, the first day, when a couple of them put up a tent, police came in and arrested them. So that’s the line they have to walk.

I talked to a history professor and he was saying there was a bit of irony here that this university is instilling values in the students and then punishing them for practising those values.These students have decided to take their stand on this issue: They’re demanding divestment from the university from anything invested in Israel or in the war on Gaza, and they say they’ll stay here until they get what they asked for.

Over the last hour or so, the number [of protesters has] steadily been growing. At the moment, it’s probably more of a gathering than a protest.

But this is very much a peaceful affair, and that’s been very much what the organisers have been selling it as on social media. [They say] come along, bring a blanket, bring some food, bring something to drink, sit on the ground, make some posters, write some slogans on the floor with chalk, just show your solidarity through peaceful motives.

There’s also a significant lack of police here. The occasional officer walks by, but compared to Thursday, when we saw those scenes and those mass arrests, the police are very much staying away.

The president of this university is coming under increasing pressure because he is the man who said that the police were right to be here on Thursday when we saw those violent arrests. Yesterday, one of the faculties here held a motion to hold a vote of no confidence in him.

Linda Sarsour tells Al Jazeera that she is “extremely inspired and encouraged by these young people all across this country”.

Sarsour, who is of Palestinian descent, was visiting the protest at Princeton University where students, as they are on campuses across the country, are protesting in support of Palestinians, as well as against their institutions’ investments in Israel.

“These young people are reaffirming and demonstrating that the tide is shifting on Palestine, that the Palestinian people have solidarity not just across the United States of America, but across the world,” she said.

When asked why no major university presidents are supporting the students in their protests, she said that the institutions “are beholden to their donors, instead of being loyal to their students”.

Students continue to occupy an encampment at Columbia University’s campus in New York. They have been protesting the university’s investments in Israel and showing their support for Palestine for almost two weeks – inspiring other students across the nation to do the same.

There’s been a fresh wave of arrests on US campuses today as students continue to protest against Israel’s war on Gaza.

In Massachusetts on the east coast, the state police said they helped cleared out a encampment at Northeastern University in the city of Boston and that 102 protesters who refused to leave were arrested and will be charged with trespassing.

The university said in a statement on social media that it decided to call in police as “what began as a student demonstration two days ago was infiltrated by professional organizers with no affiliation to Northeastern”.

In Arizona in the south, campus police at the Arizona State University (ASU) said they arrested 69 protesters. The university said “a group of people – most of whom were not ASU students, faculty or staff – created an encampment and demonstration” and were arrested and charged with criminal trespass after refusing to disperse.

And in midwestern Indiana, the Indiana University police department said 23 protesters were arrested there.

Indiana State Police along with Indiana University police told demonstrators they could not pitch tents and camp on campus, according to the Reuters news agency. When the tents were not removed, police arrested and transported protesters to the Monroe County Justice Center on charges of criminal trespass and resisting arrest.

After more than a week of protests at the City University of New York, there’s a sense of normalcy here.

Several tents remain on the campus quad, those are where people live and sleep by the day. You’ve also got speakers, one after the other, coming out to encourage people, reminding them why they are here. The entire time, they are also trying to make sure that the police don’t come in and sweep these all away.

And the rules are different at each encampment.

We went to Princeton University earlier today, and they try to play by the rules there. They did not put up tents. They put on masks because they were worried of being identified. They don’t want to be kicked out. And they didn’t use microphones because that’s against university rules.

But here and in most other camps, they simply don’t play by those university rules. And that’s kind of the point of an occupation.

About 100 students have been arrested across the US in the last 24 hours. There have been more than 650 arrested over the past week or so.

Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya has given no details of Israel’s offer, but said it was in response to a Hamas proposal two weeks ago. Negotiations earlier this month centred on a six-week ceasefire proposal and the release of 40 captives in exchange for freeing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

A separate Hamas statement said leaders from three main factions active in Gaza discussed attempts to end the war. It didn’t mention the Israeli proposal.

The statements came hours after an Egyptian delegation wrapped up a visit to Israel. Egypt has cautioned that an offensive into Rafah could have “catastrophic consequences” on the humanitarian situation in Gaza as well as on regional peace and security.

US news site Axios, citing two Israeli officials, reports that a new Israeli proposal for a possible deal with Hamas includes a willingness to discuss the “restoration of sustainable calm” in Gaza after an initial release of captives on humanitarian grounds.

According to Axios, the Israeli officials said the new proposal was formulated jointly by the Egyptian intelligence delegation and the Israeli negotiations team.

The new proposal is reported to offer a response to several of Hamas’s demands, including a willingness to allow the full return of displaced Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Netzarim Corridor, which splits the north of Gaza from the rest of the enclave.

Axios states that “the proposal also includes a willingness to discuss the establishment of a sustainable ceasefire as part of the implementation of the second phase of the deal”, which would take place after the release of the Israeli captives on humanitarian grounds.

This would mark the first time since Israel began its war on Gaza that Israeli leaders have shown an openness to discussing an end to the war as part of a deal to release the captives.

Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American activist from New York, told Al Jazeera that the protests at several US universities have demonstrated that the “tide has shifted” within the country and across the world on the issue of Palestine.

“These young people stand in the long tradition of student activism against the war in Vietnam, against South African apartheid, and now for the freedom and justice for the Palestinian people,” she said following an appearance at a pro-Palestine demonstration at Princeton University.

The Brooklyn-based co-founder of Women’s March, however, said that despite the peaceful protests, students are being “brutalised” by law enforcement officers.

“The fact that we are suppressing young people across this country only further emboldens them” to continue their protests, she said, adding that the arrests of students – carried out by police with the consent of university administrators – shows how the country’s university system is set up to be “beholden to their donors, instead of being loyal to their students”.

Festival-like atmosphere at Emory University in Atlanta

Police in ‘watching mode’ at protest at GW University in Washington DC

Emory student lays out protesters’ demands

Dozens arrested from protest at Washington University in St Louis

Jill, Jason, and Kelly holding the line with students and supporters at Washington University before the mass arrests began - photos from Ariel Cipran pic.twitter.com/20CZQPG4BW

— Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) April 28, 2024

Over 100 students and community members violently arrested at the WashU encampment tonight, including Jill Stein who was brutalized by a police bicycle. pic.twitter.com/xwhoQjOWqe

— Cinthia Romo Alba 🍉 (@cromoalba) April 28, 2024

Mustafa Yowell, a civil engineering student at the University of Austin at Texas, told Al Jazeera he’s optimistic about the future of the Palestinian cause.

“My father’s from Sherman, Texas. And my mother’s from Nablus, Palestine. I grew up in Dallas, Texas my whole life, but I’ve travelled to and from Palestine my entire life,” he said. “I love both places. I’m proud of where I’m from.”

Yowell, who is a third-year student at UT Austin, said he does not support Hamas and the protests are not about anti-Semitism or supporting the eradication of Jewish people.

“Our main goal is to open people’s eyes and get the University of Texas to divest, stop sending money to Israel and divest from companies that profit off of war like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin,” he said.

“People are starting to see now and I’m optimistic about that. There’s never been eyes on it like this before – ever. My entire life people have never cared about it this much and it’s only going up from here.”

‘We’ve had death threats,’ says suspended Cornell student protester

Canada’s first campus protest camp for Gaza has sprung up at McGill University in Montreal.

The CBC broadcaster said protesters are demanding McGill and Concordia universities “divest from funds implicated in the Zionist state as well as [cut] ties with Zionist academic institutions”.

The university said such encampments are not permitted and they increase “the potential for escalation and confrontation, as we have seen at some colleges throughout the US”, according to the AFP.

An assistant professor from the University of Southern California (USC) has announced the cancellation of students’ final project in response to the crackdown on pro-Palestine protests at the university.

“Our university administration decided to bring riot police onto the campus instead of tolerating anti-war, anti-genocide protests of students, many of whom have gone into considerable debt to even attend USC,” Sarah Kessler posted on X addressing her students.

“How are you supposed to take exams with LAPD helicopters loudly circling overhead,” she asked.

“I went into this line of work because I actually care about education, but I’m finding USC’s business as usual inhospitable to critical thinking and action at the moment.”

Student-led pro-Palestinian protests, extending beyond the US, manifested in Australia where dozens established an encampment at the University of Sydney.

More student-led international protests are taking place outside of the US, since students at Columbia University in New York set up tents on the campus earlier this month to show their support for Palestine.

Unlike what happened at Columbia, where police were called in to clear the encampment, university leaders in Sydney are reportedly allowing peaceful demonstrations to continue.

The university has warned it won’t hesitate to take action if the protest breaches what it considers acceptable.

Activists have displayed dozens of press jackets smeared with artificial blood and bearing the names of slain Palestinian journalists outside a Washington DC hotel, where the annual White House correspondents dinner is being held.

The makeshift memorial honours all the Palestinian journalists killed in Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza.

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, as of April 26, Israeli forces have killed at least 92 Palestinian journalists and media workers. The Palestinian media office in Gaza put the number at 141.

Two journalists from Israelis and three from Lebanon have also been killed in the conflict.

More from the protest outside the Washington Hilton.

Members of the feminist organisation Code Pink have dropped a huge Palestinian flag from a top floor window of the hotel, according to a video posted on X. The group said members involved in the action managed “to get out quickly and without arrest”.

The protesters are gathered outside the hotel to express solidarity with the dozens of Palestinian journalists killed in Israel’s war on Gaza.

Yair Lapid has pledged to support the Israeli government in approving a possible deal with Hamas that would bring back captives, amid reports that far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich were threatening to pull out of the ruling coalition if the offensive on Rafah is called off for such an agreement.

“Netanyahu, you have a majority among the people for a deal. And you have a majority in the Knesset for a deal. If you need to get rid of Ben Gvir and Smotrich, I will give you 24 votes in the government,” Lapid wrote on X, referring to the number of seats his Yesh Atid party controls.

“We must bring them home,” he added.

A former television anchor, Lapid briefly served as Israel’s caretaker prime minister from July to December 2022 before Netanyahu formed a majority through alliances with far-right politicians.

Thousands of protesters have rallied across Israeli cities to pressure the government to do more to secure the release of dozens of captives still held in Gaza. Demonstrations took place on Saturday night as Hamas and Israeli officials renewed truce deal efforts.

Calls for talks were also re-energised after the Palestinian group’s military wing published a video purporting to show two captives appealing to the Israeli government to secure their release.

“Seeing my father today only emphasises to all of us how much we must reach a deal as soon as possible and bring everyone home,” said Ilan Siegel, the daughter of one of the captives who appeared in the Hamas video.