EVANSTON, Ill. — Hundreds of Northwestern students joined nationwide protests against Israel’s war in Gaza on Thursday, prompting school administrations to abruptly change campus policies and ban tents or other temporary structures in previously public spaces.

University President Michael Schill informed students of the policy change just after 9 a.m. in an email.

“The goal of this addendum is to balance the right to peacefully demonstrate with our goal to protect our community, to avoid disruptions to instruction and to ensure University operations can continue unabated,” Schill said in the email.

Students in violation of the new policy risk suspension, expulsion or criminal proceedings, according to a statement posted on the university’s website.

The announcement didn’t deter the protesters.

By mid-Thursday morning, more than a dozen flimsy camping tents stood in the middle of the university’s flagship campus in Evanston. A canopy sat in the middle, with a table full of food under it and several grills nearby.

“Northwestern students faculty and staff are putting their bodies, education and jobs on the line to stand with the Palestinian people.” organizers wrote in a statement circulated before the protest.

A few hundred students linked arms to form a barricade around the tents as uniformed Northwestern University police officers stood a few yards back, watching students chant “Free, free, Palestine” and other pro-Palestinian messages.

President Schill said some demonstrators took down tents earlier that morning after discussions with university police, but others who refused were issued citations.

The tent encampment on Northwestern’s Deering Meadow is in line with large, and at times violent, protests that have swept college campuses across the country this week in support of Palestine amidst the war in Gaza.

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