ATLANTA — Atlanta colleges are joining several other universities across the nation in protest in support of Palestinians amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
A walkout is planned for Thursday at Kennesaw State University starting at 11:30 a.m. Students say they are joining other pro-Palestinian protests happening at colleges across the county, including the Georgia Institute of Technology, which held demonstrations on Wednesday.
"Columbia, NYU, Harvard, Yale, UC Berkeley, UT Austin, Georgia Tech," Ali, a former Georgia Tech student who was protesting on Wednesday, said. "They're all joining together. And I wanted this group to know that they're not alone, either."
The Atlanta Community Press Collective also reported on the campus of Emory University on Thursday morning, with pictures of a protest encampment like the one at Columbia that has inspired the growing number of such encampments.
Tensions at Georgia Tech's campus over the war in Gaza were relatively calm Wednesday, as other universities have seen heated protest actions -- with arrests this week first at Columbia and then following at schools from California to Texas to Boston.
At New York's Columbia campus, protests are in their second week, and demonstrators are setting up large encampments. The university was met with a visit from Speaker of the United States House, Mike Johnson, who spoke at the campus and met with Jewish students who said they feared for their safety,
"All those who gnash their teeth and demand to wipe the State of Israel off the map and attack our innocent Jewish students," Johnson said. "This simple truth. Neither Israel nor these Jewish students on this campus will ever stand alone."
Johnson also called for the university's president to resign.
What are pro-Palestinian protesters in the U.S. demanding?
Protesters want their universities to cut all financial ties with Israel, and many, including KSU, are demanding a permanent cease-fire.
"Our research institute has many ties with defense contractors," a Kennesaw State student, Aya, said, adding, "I don't believe that many students here want their work to be used to murder innocent people."
This renewed push comes after the United States decided to send billions of dollars to Israel as part of a foreign aid package to U.S. allies.
President Joe Biden signed the bill on Wednesday, which also provided funding for Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and other populations caught in conflict zones across the globe.
According to the Associated Press, "the bill includes about $26 billion in aid for Israel and about $1 billion in humanitarian relief for Palestinians in Gaza as the Israel-Hamas war continues. "