Gaza encampment breaks down, then relocates at Purdue

No arrests, but Purdue officials lean into overnight camping restrictions as demonstrators were asked to leave Thursday. Plus, a shout out for West Side from a Nobel Prize-winning alum. And more.

• Thanks to Stuart & Branigin for continued support of the Based in Lafayette reporting project.

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This and that on a Friday …

UPDATE ON PRO-PALESTINIAN DEMONSTRATION AT PURDUE: Students who set up a pro-Palestinian encampment on Purdue’s Agricultural Mall on Thursday left around 11 p.m. that night after, they say, university officials told them police would be called and suspensions could follow if tents weren’t taken down and students didn’t leave.

By late Friday morning, tents were back up, this time on Purdue’s Memorial Mall, just across Mitch Daniels Boulevard from the initial site of the demonstration calling attention to demands for a ceasefire in the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. About four dozen students and community members were there just after noon Friday.

Student prepare to hang a Palestinian flag at the edge of an encampment on Memorial Mall at Purdue on Friday. (Photo: Dave Bangert)

“Tonight, we’re going to see what happens,” Johnny Hazboun, president of Students for Justine in Palestine, said Friday afternoon. “I don’t think the cops are willing to arrest us, and I don’t think Purdue wants a big scandal. … Right now, we’re probably more worried about the rain and whether people want to stay through that.”