Anti-Israeli tent encampment at Harvard University was temporarily thwarted overnight — by a series of sprinklers going off starting at 2 a.m.
Dozens of sleeping protesters trying to get some shut-eye were disturbed when sprinklers suddenly turned on in the middle of the Ivy League campus in Cambridge.
“As protesters spend their first night in the Harvard Yard encampment, the greatest threat to their stay comes not from Harvard University administrators or police officers, but from the Yard’s sprinklers,” the newspaper said Thursday student Harvard Crimson.
The first sprinkler turned on just outside the Harvard Yard encampment around 2:30 a.m. as the temperature dropped to 36 degrees.
Then, shortly before 4 a.m., a sprinkler in the middle of the tents began spraying water, prompting students to quickly hand out buckets.
“Two more sprinklers turned on at the edge of the encampment near Massachusetts Hall,” the newspaper said in a live blog update at 4:05 a.m.
“The sprinklers began hitting the tents on the outskirts of the camp before protesters rushed to cover the sprinklers with buckets and sit on them.”
More than a dozen tents were set up Wednesday in front of the $79,500-a-year university after a rally against the university’s suspension of the Palestine Solidarity Committee for Harvard Undergraduates.
Trying to preempt planned protests that have already disrupted Columbia University and New York, Harvard locked most of the gates to its famous courtyard before Monday’s classes and limited access to those with ID cards. school ID.
The school also posted warning signs about setting up tents or tables on campus without permission.
As of Thursday, no arrests had been made.
This comes as anti-Israel protests have intensified on college campuses over the past week.
In Columbia, more than 100 protesters were handcuffed and led away when New York police were brought in to disperse the camp.
New York University students then set up an encampment, which was also demolished and resulted in more than 100 arrests.
New York Post
