”I’ve only been here a few minutes and someone already called me a Jihadist,” said Ali Dabdoub, a Palestinian KSU student studying software engineering. He arrived late to the demonstration because he was taking an exam.

Carrying a Palestinian flag and wearing a black and white keffiyeh, Dabdoub said he was impressed by the turnout, not just on KSU’s campus but at colleges across the U.S.

“Falastin hurrah,” he said in Arabic, which translates to “free Palestine.”

“I believe the world is waking up. I know it’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of time.”

Several Georgia colleges and universities, including Emory, have held rallies and demonstrations since the war began Oct. 7 with Hamas’ attack on Israel that killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis and foreigners. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed during the conflict, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least two-thirds of them women and children.

There are believed to be about 130 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, of the roughly 240 initially taken by Hamas, according to CBS News.

Those protesting the war are demanding schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies enabling its monthslong conflict. At the same time, some Jewish students say the protests have veered into antisemitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus as graduation nears, partly prompting a heavier hand from universities. Some institutions have called in police to break up demonstrations.

At New York University this week, police said 133 protesters were taken into custody, while more than 40 protesters were arrested Monday at an encampment at Yale University. Columbia University averted another confrontation between students and police earlier Wednesday. University President Minouche Shafik had set on Tuesday a midnight deadline to reach an agreement on clearing an encampment, but the school extended negotiations until early Friday.

At Emerson College in Boston, 108 people were arrested at an encampment overnight and four police officers suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, Boston police said.

Upon hearing of the clashes with police at Emory on Thursday, Georgia NAACP President Gerald Griggs said that they are requesting a meeting with Emory’s president. The organization wants a “detailed understanding of events” that took place, including the reasoning behind the way the university responded to protesters, Griggs said in a statement.

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