Moment cops storm Yale University’s pro-Palestine encampment and arrest at least THIRTY

Cops have stormed the Yale University square where hundreds of defiant pro-Palestine students have been camping out for the past several nights. 

Connecticut police arrived at Beinecke Plaza Monday morning to try to rouse the pupils from their tents after the protest escalated into violence over the weekend. 

It comes as a Jewish Yale student accused a pro-Gaza  demonstrator who allegedly stabbed her in the eye with a Palestine flag of using a keffiyeh to conceal his identity.

Sahar Tartak, a sophomore and editor of the Yale Free Press, said the assailant hid his face with the monochrome scarf – a symbol of Palestinian patriotism. 

‘He had anonymity because of the keffiyeh, and organizers encourage anonymity at these events because it creates immunity so that students can physically assault people like me and then get away with it,’ she told Fox News. 

Tartak said around 500 students were at the demonstration in what they called ‘Gaza Plaza’ on Saturday night, calling for ‘complete liberation’ of Palestine. 

Around 100 remained in tents overnight, and around 30 have been detained by cops so far. 

Officers were seen walking between tents on Monday morning warning students they had ‘a few minutes to clear the area’ or face arrest. 

But the officials were met with chants of ‘we shall not be moved’ as the students formed a circle and appeared to block the surrounding roads. 

Footage from the scene showed around 30 protesters being taken away in a police van as the remaining demonstrators cheered and applauded. The police vehicle bounced as it drove away from the force of students jumping  around inside. 

Tartak said she was attacked Saturday night when students made a ‘human blockade’ around her while chanting ‘anti-Jewish’ slogans as she entered their demonstration.

The Ivy League student, who wears conservative dress and a Star of David necklace, said she entered the fray with another ‘visibly Jewish’ student in Hasidic attire which made them targets. 

‘As they saw me they noticed that I was videotaping and that I was being blockaded by their co-ideologues,’ Tartak told Fox News. 

‘So in addition to the really aggressive human blockade, they also began to harass and mock and taunt me. They waved their hands and middle finger in my camera and my face and they yelled at me. 

‘And then finally one of the students whose face was covered in a keffiyeh took a Palestinian flag that he was holding and waved it in my face and then hit my left eye. 

‘I immediately yelled “he stabbed me in the eye” and ran after him. And then this human blockade continued to blockade me so that they wouldn’t let me find the man who assaulted me because they wanted to protect him. 

‘He had anonymity because of the keffiyeh, and organizers encourage anonymity at these events because it creates immunity so that students can physically assault people like me and then get away with it.’

Tartak said organizers of the protest called an ambulance for her after she explained what had happened, and an EMT at the scene advised her to go to the hospital. She said she didn’t get home until around 2.30am. 

She said the protest involved around 500 students and that around 100 of these have been camping overnight in the university’s main plaza.

Tartak also detailed the alleged attack on X, formerly Twitter, alongside a photograph of the alleged assailant in the keffiyeh. 

The sophomore  previously told the New York Post that she ‘tried to report the assault to campus police, but they told her there was nothing they could do.’ She was discharged from the hospital without reporting the incident to police.

A string of social media posts documented Tartak’s confrontations with pro-Palestine protesters. She included several videos of fellow students linking their arms and walking in a circle around her, chanting.

Tartak described them as a ‘human blockade’ and accused them of pinning her against a wall. 

‘One of many videos of a human blockade that did not let me move around at last night’s violent protest,’ she captioned one clip.

‘This is me standing in between protestors and the wall. organizers told protestors to get closer to the wall. “Come closer,” they beckoned, waving the mob in my direction.’

In the video, another student urges the protesters to move in, telling Tartak they are trying to create a path for her to leave.

However, she accuses the organizers of directing the other students to ‘knock into (her).’

Tartak further asserted that the protesters blockaded her to keep her from ‘running after my assaulter.’ 

‘Instead of helping me find him swiftly, one organizer told me: “I want you to think about what do you really want to get out of this,”‘ she wrote. 

In another video, the sophomore filmed her confrontation with said organizer.

‘I’d like to remove the person from the rally who hit me in the eye with the flag,’ she says frantically while recording the other student, who wears a red keffiyeh around her neck.

‘All of us want this rally to be peaceful, and we don’t want anyone to be injured,’ the student responds. ‘I just need to ask you a few more questions.’

Tartak then accuses the woman of ‘stalling,’ claiming she feels ‘uncomfortable.’

Yale students have been setting up tents in Beinecke Plaza since Friday. The demonstrations came as a direct response to attempts to remove a similar campsite at Columbia University. 

So far, no arrests have been made, unlike at Columbia, where a police spokesperson confirmed that more than 100 protesters had been taken into custody.

Most of those arrested were charged with resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration.

The Yale student body has been protesting for months to pressure the university into divesting its endowment from weapons manufacturers amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

These efforts have only ramped up over the past few weeks amid the war in Gaza that has seen more than 30,000 Palestinian civilians killed.

Speaking to the Jerusalem Post, Tartak said she urged police to disband the encampment, but was told they needed authorization to do so. 

‘These students are violating every policy in the books; they should have been disbanded immediately,’ she told the publication.

‘These students have taken over campus, and it’s an intimidation tactic.’

On Sunday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates issued a statement.

‘While every American has the right to peaceful protect, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly Antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous – they have absolutely no place on any college campus, or anywhere in the United States of America,’ he said.

‘And echoing the rhetoric of terrorist organizations, especially in the wake of the worst massacre committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, is despicable. We condemn these statements in the strongest terms.’

DailyMail.com has contacted Connecticut State Police and New Haven Police for comment.