Montreal police clear out anti-Israel encampment at McGill University
School president claims weekslong encampment was ‘heavily fortified focal point for intimidation and violence’ led by non-students; student protester vows ‘this is not the end’
McGill University in Canada closed its downtown campus on Wednesday as Montreal police descended in large numbers to help clear an anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian encampment that had been there for weeks.
McGill president Deep Saini called the encampment at the Canadian university — one of many that had sprung up on campuses across North America since the start of the Israel-Hamas war — “a heavily fortified focal point for intimidation and violence, organized largely by individuals who are not part of our university community.”
Under pounding rain, anti-Israel protesters carried their belongings off campus, as bulldozers and security forces dismantled the encampment that had been on the school’s lower field.
“That was officially the last stand. There’s nobody in the encampment anymore,” said protester Félix Burt, 20, standing a block from McGill’s lower field, where a pile of tents and wooden pallets were what remained of the protest site.
A Montreal police spokesman said one person was arrested on Wednesday for assault on a security agent.
In Quebec City, Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry told reporters “it was time” to remove protesters from the encampment.
Déry said the atmosphere on campuses had become “toxic,” and expressed hope that things would be calmer by the time fall classes begin.
McGill’s #Gaza Solidarity Encampment is currently being dismantled. A support rally is being held outside of the encampment denouncing the dismantlement.
In this ????, I address current developments at the #encampment & serious allegations made by McGill. pic.twitter.com/VFsgVXoMzd
— Savanna Craig (@savannacraig) July 10, 2024
Zaina Karim, a McGill student who wasn’t inside the camp when the dismantlement began, said protesters will persist until the university discloses and cuts its ties with Israel.
“This is not the end at all,” Karim said.
Campus protesters have demanded the university end its investments connected to Israel’s military and cut ties with Israeli institutions over the offensive in Gaza, which was sparked by Palestinian terror group Hamas’s onslaught on October 7.
Over the last few months, anti-Israel students on campuses across North America have built encampments, occupied buildings and led protests to call on colleges and universities to divest their endowments from companies doing business with Israel or which are perceived as supporting its war effort in Gaza.
The protests have sometimes featured overt antisemitism or support for terrorism.
