New York police clear out pro-Palestine protest at Barnard

Police in New York have evacuated the Barnard College library, where pro-Palestine protesters had been staging a sit-in over the expulsion of three other students, claiming they had received a bomb threat.

The police announced on X that the threat was “investigated and cleared” and a spokesperson later said roughly nine people were taken into custody during the demonstration.

Videos shared widely on social media showed protesters inside the building on Wednesday afternoon chanting, playing drums and hanging Palestinian flags on walls. Videos from later in the evening showed police entering the building wearing helmets and carrying zip ties and then later clearing and detaining protesters and others from the lawn outside the building.

The group Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine dismissed the threat as “manufactured by Barnard administrators” to clear the protest, noting in posts on X that police brought detained students back into the library even as they continued their investigation.

The Student Government Association of Barnard College, meanwhile, in a letter to the Columbia University-affiliated school’s administration, decried its approach to the protests.

“We bear witness to our fellow students – our friends – brutalised and silenced for speaking up on our own campus,” the letter said. “The Barnard Student Government Association strongly condemns the presence of NYPD [New York Police Department] on campus.”

BREAKING: SRG police has cleared the protesters from the Barnard College lawn after Pro-Palestine students OCCUPIED Milstein Library inside.

Video by @peterhvideo @FreedomNTV Desk@freedomnews.tv to license pic.twitter.com/ZC265x1EWp

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) March 5, 2025

Israelis join TikTok trend mocking Palestinian children’s suffering

An Israeli social media trend shows people prank-calling family members, pretending to seek donations for Palestinian children, to mock their suffering in Gaza.

Beyond sick.

Israel’s Katz vows to resume Gaza war with ‘unseen intensity’

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz threatened to restart the war on Gaza with “unseen intensity” if efforts to release Israeli captives fail.

Katz promised to return all the captives, including those killed “by the vile people in the Gaza Strip”, according to The Times of Israel.

“The ceasefire agreement with the murderous Hamas and the heavy prices Israel paid, and is willing to continue to pay, within its implementation, are intended to bring about the rapid release of all living Israeli hostages, who are held under the most severe conditions in Gaza, and to bring all of the hostages who are not alive for burial in Israel,” Katz was quoted as saying.

“One thing is clear — the fighting will end in two clear achievements: the release of all of our hostages and the defeat of Hamas.”

PM Netanyahu ‘in difficulties internally’ over restarting Gaza war

Meron Rapoport, editor of the Local Call news site in Tel Aviv, says that while the Israeli government is downplaying the direct contact between Hamas and the Trump administration, the discussions are important.

“We have to remember Israel has been dialoguing with Hamas for many years but not directly, always through intermediaries. Direct talks are an interesting development, and I think Israel is viewing it with quiet concern,” Rapaport told Al Jazeera.

Despite the Gaza ceasefire now stalled with Israel refusing to enter its second phase, the Israeli government appears to be reluctant to restart the fighting, he said, noting only 9 percent of the Israeli public in a recent poll wanted to go back to war.

“It did not go further than this blockade and did not really go back into bombing as some may have feared. Prime Minister Netanyahu knows he’s in difficulties internally, and if the US is conducting negotiations with Hamas behind the scenes, it makes things even more difficult.”

New Columbia University committee targets pro-Palestine students

A new university disciplinary committee at Columbia University in New York City has initiated a flurry of cases against students who have expressed criticism of Israel, The Associated Press reports.

The committee, the Office of Institutional Equity, in recent weeks has sent notices to dozens of students for activities ranging from sharing social media posts in support of Palestinian people to joining “unauthorized” protests.

The office is raising alarm among students, faculty and free speech advocates, who accuse the school of bowing to Trump’s threats to slash funding to universities and deport campus “agitators”.

“Based on how these cases have proceeded, the university now appears to be responding to governmental pressure to suppress and chill protected speech,” Amy Greer, an attorney who is advising students accused of discrimination, told the Associated Press.

The Columbia campus saw a wave of student protests in support of Palestine last year that caused controversy and charges of stifling free speech as the university administration cracked down.

US to use AI to revoke visas of students perceived as pro-Hamas: Report

The US State Department will use artificial intelligence to revoke visas of foreign students who are perceived as supporters of Hamas, Axios reported, citing senior State Department officials.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is launching “Catch and Revoke”, AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders’ social media accounts, the outlet reported.

Axios said officials were checking news reports of protests to identify students seen as sympathetic towards the Palestinian group.

Officials will also examine internal databases to see whether any visa holders were arrested but allowed to stay in the country during the Biden administration, the outlet reported.

“We see people marching at our universities and in the streets of our country … calling for Intifada, celebrating what Hamas has done … Those people need to go,” Rubio had said a few days after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack which sparked Israel’s war in Gaza.

Trump echoed the same in a January 30 White House fact sheet tied to an executive order aimed at “pro-Hamas” activity, Axios reported: “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice. We will find you, and we will deport you.”

Less than half of Americans now support Israel: Gallup

Support for Israel among Americans is at its lowest since the polling company Gallup started surveying them on this question.

According to new data released by Gallup, only 46 percent of Americans express support for Israel, down from the previous lowest point – 51 percent – recorded both last year and in 2001. Gallup started tracking responses to this question 25 years ago.

The number of Americans who say they support Palestinians is at 33 percent, up by 6 percentage points since last year.

The poll also found that only 40 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the Israel-Palestine conflict, lower than his already low overall job approval rating of 45 percent.

Israeli, US air forces conduct joint exercise

The Israeli Air Force has conducted a joint training exercise with the US Air Force, the Israeli military said in a statement.

During the exercise, Israeli F-35i and F-15i aircraft flew alongside a US B-52 strategic bomber, the Israeli military said, adding that the aircraft had practised “operational coordination between the two militaries to enhance their ability to address various regional threats”.

Speculation has grown in recent months about a possible joint attack by Israel and the US on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Israel’s new defence chief of staff to present plans for resumed Gaza fighting

The Israeli military’s new chief of staff is expected to present plans for the resumption of fighting in Gaza at a meeting tonight, according to Israeli media.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that the new chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, is set to hold a situational assessment detailing plans to retake control of various areas across Gaza, including areas it left as part of the ceasefire agreement deal.

But officials who spoke with the newspaper also said that the military is facing challenges drafting the number of reservists needed for such a plan.

A number of Israeli reservists have indicated that they would decline to fight in Gaza and end their voluntary service instead, as they believe a resumption of hostilities would endanger the remaining captives and is based on political calculations.

Trump will back Israel in ‘whatever action it chooses to take’

The White House administration is standing by the fact that there would not be a deployment of troops in Gaza, though what they say and what they do may be two different things.

However, what is very clear is that Trump will back Israel in whatever action it chooses to take should the captives not be released, so he is basically flashing a green light in the direction of Israel to restart full-on conflict in Gaza.

This goes against what it appears his special envoy to the region is doing. He’s been holding direct talks with Hamas, bypassing Israel, and is now on his way to Doha for talks with the region’s leaders there. So there appears to be a bit of a disconnect in terms of what President Trump thinks and what his diplomats are actually doing on the ground.

But it was made very clear again, and he’s said it repeatedly, that it is up to Israel to do whatever it deems necessary, and now he’s giving Israel a very, very clear green light to do what it deems necessary, even if it means an upsurge in the conflict.

Hamas spokesperson calls on Trump to visit released Palestinian prisoners

A spokesperson for Hamas’s political division has called on Trump to meet with Palestinian prisoners after he met with released Israeli captives.

In a public letter shared with Al Jazeera, the spokesperson, Basem Naim, wrote that while Trump speaks of the “unbearable suffering of Israeli captives in Gaza”, more than 9,500 Palestinians are languishing in Israeli custody across 23 detention centers, deprived of basic rights, denied family visits, and facing “ongoing psychological and physical torture”.

“We invite President Trump to show the same level of respect to freed Palestinian political prisoners and allocate the time to meet and listen to their stories,” he wrote.

Naim added that 62 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since the beginning of the latest war and that Israeli authorities are holding the remains of 665 Palestinians buried in “numbers graves” and “morgues”, some of whom had been detained as far back as the 1960s and 1970s.

Main events on March 6th

• Support for Israel among Americans is at its lowest since the polling company Gallup started surveying them on this question.
• The US State Department will use artificial intelligence to revoke visas of foreign students who are perceived as supporters of Hamas, Axios reported, citing senior State Department officials.
• The US president confirmed that a senior US official held direct talks with Hamas recently about Israeli captives held in Gaza.
• Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said US discussions with Hamas were recent and the message to the Palestinian group was that the US wants to get captives home.
• Any Israeli military escalation against Palestinians would most likely lead to the killing of some captives, a spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, has said.

Largest displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967: UNRWA chief

The head of UNRWA has condemned Israel’s large-scale demolition of homes in the occupied West Bank and warned that they are having a devastating impact on the lives of thousands of Palestinians.

“The refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams have been nearly emptied of their residents, with widespread destruction to civilian infrastructure including homes,” the agency’s commissioner, Philippe Lazzarini, wrote in a post on X. “People now face the prospect of having nowhere to return to.”

Lazzarini noted that the ongoing Israeli military escalation in the West Bank, which has already displaced some 40,000 people, is “the single-longest and most destructive since the second Intifada, resulting in the largest displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since the 1967 war”.

He added that recent Israeli legislation targeting UNRWA has “created a vacuum of international presence when it is most needed”.