Students protesting the Israel-Hamas war are demanding schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies they say are enabling its brutal war in Gaza.

Student-led protests against Israel’s war on Gaza have intensified across the United States, as police in riot gear arrested dozens of young people at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) and the University of Southern California (USC) on Wednesday.

While tensions rose between police and protesters at USC earlier in the day, in the evening a few dozen demonstrators standing in a circle with locked arms were detained one by one without incident.

The arrests in California were in sharp contrast to the chaos that ensued just hours earlier at UT Austin, where the biggest protest on Wednesday took place and saw hundreds of students stage a walkout and march to the campus’s main lawn.

Hundreds of local and state police, including some on horseback, arrived at the scene. Holding batons, they charged at the crowds and forcefully arrested several students.

Officers made 34 arrests at the behest of the university and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, the state Department of Public Safety said.

In a statement Wednesday night, UT Austin’s president Jay Hartzell, said: “Our rules matter, and they will be enforced. Our University will not be occupied.”

Abbott said the protesters “belong in jail”, adding that any students joining in what he called “hate-filled, anti-Semitic protests” should be expelled.

The arrests in cities of Austin and Los Angeles came as students at Harvard University and Brown University on the east coast also defied threats of action and set up encampments in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

The movement, which began at Columbia University in New York last week, is demanding that universities cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies that are enabling Israel’s brutal war in Gaza. At least 34,262 Palestinians have died in Israel’s assault on the besieged enclave since Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israeli communities that killed 1,139 people and saw dozens of people abducted by the Palestinian militant group.

The student protests against the war have been peaceful and largely respectful, but some Jewish students say the protests have veered into antisemitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus, partly prompting heavy-handed action from universities.

At New York University this week, police said 133 protesters were taken into custody, while over 40 protesters were arrested Monday at an encampment at Yale University.

Columbia University averted another confrontation between students and police earlier Wednesday. University President Minouche Shafik had set on Tuesday a midnight deadline to reach an agreement on clearing an encampment, but the school extended negotiations, saying it would continue talks with protesters for another 48 hours.

Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House, on a visit to the campus on Wednesday, called on Shafik to resign “if she cannot bring order to this chaos.”

“If this is not contained quickly and if these threats and intimidation are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard,” he said.

He said he intended to demand US President Joe Biden “take action”, and warned that the demonstrations “place a target on the backs of Jewish students in the United States”.

A Columbia spokesperson said Wednesday evening that rumors that the university had threatened to bring in the National Guard were unfounded. “Our focus is to restore order, and if we can get there through dialogue, we will,” said Ben Chang, Columbia’s vice president for communications.

Police first tried to clear the encampment at Columbia last week, when they arrested more than 100 protesters. The move backfired, acting as an inspiration for other students across the country to set up similar encampments and motivating protesters at Columbia to regroup.

On Wednesday, about 60 tents remained at the Columbia encampment, which appeared calm. Security remained tight around campus, with identification required and police setting up metal barricades.

Columbia said it had agreed with protest representatives that only students would remain at the encampment and they would make it welcoming, banning discriminatory or harassing language.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, meanwhile, said Biden backed free speech.

“The president believes that free speech, debate, and nondiscrimination on college campuses are important,” she told reporters.